Weekend At The Belpois
by 2remember
Summary: Emily Moralés is thirteen years old and thinks she's ready for anything, until she spends the weekend with her next door neighbors, the Belpois...
1. Dangerous Liaisons

**Author's Note**: This story takes place around four years after the events of "Vows, Confessions and Revelations."

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

_To AlmightyTallestAngie_

* * *

"Emily! Time for bed!" 

"Rats, what a bore!" thirteen year old Emily Moralés muttered under her breath. After taking a deep cleansing breath, she hollered back," Mom! I'm talking with a friend! Can I stay up a few minutes longer?"

"Absolutely not!" retorted her mother, Suzanne, who had tracked the girl down by her voice and now loomed in the doorway of her office. "And how many times have I told you to stay out of my office! You have a perfectly good workstation in your room, young lady, and I expect you to use it!"

"But mooom! Yours is so much better! It's faster without all of that web site monitoring crap that's on it. I mean, it takes, like, forever to load a page!"

"Emily Marie Moralés, I know for a fact that your workstation's response time is as fast, if not faster, than that workstation you are sitting at. I had Mr. Belpois come over after the last time you complained about speed, and he checked everything, including the bypasses you coded around the site blockers."

"But..."

"No buts! I will give you five minutes so you may wrap up your conversation with your friend, then I will return and bodily remove you from that chair! And if I have to do that, no outside access for you for a month! Get me?!"

"Got you, ma'am," the girl said, signaling her defeat.

With that, Emily's mother turned and went back to what she was doing. The girl turned her attention back to the display, and to the person looking back at her from it.

"Sorry you had to hear that, Adam," she said to the person in the display, "mom's awful protective of me. She's afraid some pervert will jump out of the screen and kidnap me."

"And she has a right to be concerned," the boy on the display replied, "there are a lot of bad people out there, just trolling for unsuspecting juveniles, hoping to lure them away from home to abuse them. You should be thankful your parents care enough about you that they go to the trouble they do to keep those kinds of people away from you."

"I know, but still..." the girl replied, then stopped, "hey, you aren't one of those creeps are you?"

"Would you like me to say no?" Adam replied, "and what would you do if I said no? Would you agree to meet me somewhere some day later on? Maybe I _am_ a pervert, just waiting to sink my fangs into your tender flesh, and I'm stringing you on to so you will let your guard down."

Emily was taken aback. Could it be? Then Adam laughed.

"You should see your face! As a matter of fact, look!" Suddenly, another window popped open showing the shocked look on Emily's face. "That was so worth it! Now, I had better be going. You're mother is going to come back in two minutes and forcibly remove you from that chair, and my mother is looking at me with a particularly perturbed look on her face, so I think I am in trouble too. You have a good night, and we will talk again soon."

With that, Adam's image disappeared from the display. Quickly, Emily shut down all of the programs she had up and running, then logged off from her mother's workstation. She quickly got up and exited her mother's office, just in time to meet her just outside the door.

"Cutting it close, as usual," her mother said.

"I'm sorry, but it took a little bit to wrap things up," she replied truthfully.

Suzanne Moralés smiled at her daughter. "Alright dear, the inquisition is over. Go on upstairs and get ready for bed. And don't forget to hug your father goodnight."

"I won't."

* * *

Adam closed the interface he had opened and looked up at his mother, looming over him with a mildly somber look on her face. 

"Adam, I thought I told you not to engage EmilyMoralés in conversation again. Her mother may have an incomplete knowledge of us, but the girl has none, and it needs to stay that way.'

"I"m sorry, MotherZoe, but what can I do?" he replied, "she can access Lyoko from her mother's workstation, and she is bright enough to call out and find me. Should I ignore her? You taught us that that was a rude thing to do."

"Our biggest concern is secrecy," Zoe told her child, "our benefactors have not sacrificed so much so we can bleat our existence to the entire world. If others found out about us, they would take the computer that keeps this place in existence, tear it apart, and destroy all of us! EmilyMoralés is a nice child, but you must not speak to her anymore, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, MotherZoe, I understand you completely. I will not speak to EmilyMoralés again."


	2. Life Is Good

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The alarm clock rang and told Emily that another school day was at hand. She groaned and dragged herself out of bed, and into the bathroom. She undressed, then relieved herself, then stepped into the shower for her morning's ablution and regeneration.

Afterwards, she stepped out and toweled herself dry, then toweled her long brown hair. She wrapped it in the towel, then went to look in the mirror before brushing her teeth. She had her mother's face and her father's eyes, which was good. Her father was cute in his own way, but he looked like a prize fighter with his chiseled jaw. She didn't think she was all that attractive as it was, but if she looked like her father, she knew she wouldn't be.

She took a close look at her face, looking for pimples. She had gotten her first a week before, and that set her mother into full mother-hen mode. She went out that day and got goop for her to put on her face every night to clean the pores of her skin out. She bought other potions that was supposed to heal the zits without leaving a scar, and it seemed to work. The only problem was Emily now had to be on constant watch for the little devils, and her mother said they didn't really settle down for her until she was almost thirty.

_Lord, shoot me now if I have to worry about these things 'til I'm thirty!_

She took a quick inventory of the rest of her and sighed. _Straight as a rail and just as flat, and smooth as glass, too. Ya know, God, if You're gonna give me the bad parts of puberty, how about forking over some of the good stuff, too? I mean c'mon! Ereka Winters looks like she's smuggling boccie balls in her shirt and all the cute guys are looking google-eyed at her! Especially Ricky Dunbar! So, how 'bout it, just a little?_

The Almighty, as usual, deigned to respond to her request, so she sighed and picked out her clothes for the day.

She tromped downstairs after drying her hair and dressing. Her mother was setting out her breakfast while her father sat at the table, drinking a cup of coffee and eating some oatmeal. Untouched by the bowl of oatmeal was a half of a grapefruit.

She walked over, kissed her dad on the cheek in greeting, went over and hugged her mother, then sat down. She was then presented with her meal, oatmeal, grapefruit and milk. She dug in.

"So, what's on tap for today, Suzie?" her father asked.

"I've got a meeting with Aelita and Zoe at 10am to discuss the new prototype," her mother replied, "Takeo called from Japan yesterday afternoon and said the latest one failed its first run through. We're going to discuss the tests results this morning, then I'm probably going to have to spend the rest of the day figuring out what went wrong. So, anything new going on at school?"

"Not much, just going round and round with the Board again on staffing," her father replied, "I swear, I think they're trying to kill the Phys Ed Department just because I used to be the gym teacher!"

Emily's mother joined them at the table with her own breakfast. "Jim, is it that bad? I know the school's been going through a rough time of it, but are they really going to cut PE?"

"That's what they're arguing for. It's not just the funding; they're telling me that this is a trend in education now. They eliminate PE and divert the funds to other areas. Now, I'm all for keeping the other programs funded, but Physical Education serves a purpose too. Heck, it wouldn't bother me so much if they were just talking about eliminating team sports, but they're talking about the whole thing, including razing the gym and the track for more parking!"

"What does Desmond have to say about all of this? He's usually able to make the Board see reason."

"He's tried, but the rest of the Board is concrete, thoroughly mixed and permanently set. Next Board meeting, they're going to vote on it. If they have their way, Phys Ed will be gone next year. And, on that happy note, it's time to go, squirt. And, keep all this about PE under your hat, okay."

"Sure dad," Emily replied, "'I'd rather not talk about it.'"

* * *

Suzanne Moralés waived goodbye to her husband and daughter, then left for the day. She walked down their little walkway, out her front gate, then turned to her left. She walked to the house next door, opened the gate, which had a little sign that read 'Hermitage,' and walked up to the front door. Just as she was about to knock, the front door opened revealing a pink haired woman.

"Hi, Suzanne; I saw you walking up so I just came to let you in," said the woman. Suzanne looked at her and suppressed a laugh. Aelita Belpois was standing just inside her doorway, half dressed. She was wearing a nice blouse, a slip, hose and house slippers. She hop-skipped back as she tried pulling off her slippers so she could put her skirt on.

"Aelita, if you're not careful, you're going to trip and break you neck, then who would sign my paychecks?" Suzanne said as she walked in.

"The same person that always does, Jeremie," she replied.

Years ago, when they first got married, Jim and Suzanne faced a rough situation. They were both vying for the position of Vice Principal under Jean-Pierre Delmas, the principal at the time. Both of them at one time or another had filled the duties of that position, but Jim had been backfilling it for a lot longer than Suzanne had, so Jean-Pierre gave Jim the job. And there was another little bombshell with that promotion: Suzanne had to resign from the school, because it was against policy for spouses to work together in a direct supervisor/employee relationship. Since the Vice Principal was also over all of the teaching staff, that meant that Suzanne could no longer teach at Kadic Academy. The school paid out the balance of her contract, plus a generous severance, and for the first time in her life, Suzanne Hertz, soon to be Suzanne Moralés, was out of a job.

Suzanne was especially bitter over the decision, because it happened just before she married Jim, and they were making their plans assuming they both would be bringing in salaries. The had just closed on the house they were now living in, and that mortgage was obtained on the assumption that both of their salaries would be coming in. That was one of the darker times in the woman's life.

Then Desmond Hopper stepped in. He was, and still is, Kadic Academy's attorney, but he was also into a lot of other things. One of the things he did was manage the estate of his late brother, Franz, in the name of his niece, Aelita. Aelita Hopper just appeared out of thin air one day after mysteriously disappearing with her father years before. Desmond was appointed her guardian, and he guarded her interests well. It seemed that his brother Franz owned the abandoned factory close to Kadic, so Desmond set about renovating it into an office building. The Old Factory Building, as it was now known as, was the headquarters for another of Desmond's investments for his niece, Hopper Electronics. It seemed that old Franz had some ideas in his head before he disappeared relating to computer electronics. Desmond had those ideas patented, then set about forming a corporation to build the components Franz created. He set up his niece Aelita, and her then boyfriend Jeremie Belpois as principals in the corporation, and the three proceeded to make Hopper Electronics a powerhouse in high end computing. Six years after the company was founded, they introduced a desktop sized computer that was four hundred times faster than any computer then in existence, including so-called supercomputers. Hopper Electronics had offices all around the world: Paris, New York, London, Kyoto, Beijing, Singapore and elsewhere.

Desmond approached Suzanne before she had cleaned her desk out at Kadic Academy with a proposition. Come work for Hopper Electronics; he could arrange a salary comparable to the one she had just lost, and that would be an entry level salary. He told her that if they could make the company work, she would be well compensated in both salary and stock options. She thought about it, then accepted. Desmond had a nose for money, and there was always something near magical about Jeremie Belpois and Aelita Hopper, as if together they could literally do anything in the world.

Suzanne had never regretted her decision. They showed her a computer chip unlike she had ever seen before. When they put it on an electronic bench, it did things she was absolutely certain were impossible by physics. But, there it was, and it was doing those things. The barely sixteen year old boy set a sheaf of notes in front of her and said, "here's all of the notes we have on that component from Aelita's dad, along with some notes we've made. I want you to take a look at them, and that component, then tell me why and how it works. If you can do that, we all will be rich beyond the dreams of avarice; and it may even earn you a trip to Stockholm one day."

It took her two years, but she did it. Two years of almost rewriting the textbook on physics, but she explained how the chip generated a quantum field that seemed ninety degrees out of phase with normal reality, that generated a quantum device that could be linked with other quantum devices to form computers on a scale never imagined. The Hopper/Hertz quantum chip revolutionized computer electronics overnight. And, if what Suzanne had heard through the grapevine was true, she and Aelita might be making a short jaunt to Stockholm real soon now.

And before her now was the genius behind the new revolution in computer technology, jumping up and down on one foot trying to get dressed for the day. Life is good.

* * *

Jim and Emily walked though the woods on their way to Kadic Academy. He always relished this time alone with his daughter, the light of his life. It was probably the one time in his life when he could truly set aside whatever was worrying him and concentrate on her.

"So, squirt, a little birdie told me Mr. Coffy and Mr. Pyle are in town this week. Do you want me to set up a meeting?" Jim causally asked her.

"Really! That'd be great!" she replied excitedly.

Michael Coffy and William Pyle were two Americans that her father had known for years, though he would never say how. Three years back, the two men had spent a great deal of time in Paris, and regularly visited both her parents and their neighbors, the Belpois. One night, some weirdo had jumped the then ten year old as she was walking home from school alone. She did her best to fight the creep off, but he was too big. Her screams attracted the two men, who quickly dissuaded him from doing anything further, like breathing. There was a big scene with the cops and the American Embassy, but after an hour, the two men were back at the Belpois, as if nothing had happened.

The next day, her dad had talked to the two men, and they agreed to train her in self-defense. So, along with the karate, Capoeira and Pencak Silat her father taught her, the two men added kempo, hwarangdo and years of street fighting experience. They had also said that they would teach her how to use firearms if her father agreed. So far, daddy hadn't.

They hadn't been around much lately, so it would be good to see her adopted uncles again.

"Well, I'll ask if they've got the time," Jim said, "but you need to be extra attentive in class before I do. I've heard what you've been doing in Mrs. Meyer's class, young lady."

"Dad, can I help it if she gets it wrong?" Emily replied, "I mean, I like Mrs. Meyer, I really do, but she's so forgetful at times! It's almost cruel to make her keep on working the way she is; I don't know why you don't retire her."

"Because, she has nothing else," her father said, "I've been in that situation, and so has your mother; and I won't be the one to kick someone when they're down like that. I've tried to get her an assistant; I've even had Liz Della Robbia assist her, to take the load off. But she needs this, Em. I've been doing all I can to see that the kids don't get too far behind because of her, and I probably will have to do something about her before too long, but I won't if I can all help it. And until I do, you hold your tongue in class, or at least try and use a little more tact. I hope it never happens, but you could be in the same situation one day, and if you are, you'll be wishing for someone to help you out or cut you a break."

They had just about reached the other end of the forest and the school when Jim stopped. He smiled down at her and held out his arms, and she responded by jumping into them and giving him a big kiss, as he hugged her close.

"Now, you go on and have a good day," he told her as he set her down.

As he watched his daughter run off to find her friends, Jim sighed. Life was good.


	3. Life Goes On

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

"So that's it. The latest test failed, even though the circuits were set up exactly to specifications," the image of Zoe said to the two women gathered before her.

"Zoe, can you download the data from the test run to my workstation at home?" Suzanne asked the woman on the workstation screen, "I'd like to take a closer look, if you don't mind. Maybe I'll see something you can't, unlikely as that may be."

"I already have," Zoe replied, "is there anything else you need? If not, I need to go and check up on my children. You know how it is, if it gets too quiet, there's something going on."

"I understand completely, Zoe," she replied with a smile, "thanks for meeting with us, and I'll talk to you later."

Zoe nodded, then the window containing her image closed.

Suzanne turned and looked at Aelita, who was sitting there looking at the display, a strange look on her face.

"So, Zoe works from home too," Suzanne said, breaking the silence, "she rarely talks about her personal life. I never knew she was married."

"She's not," Aelita said, "she's raising her children by herself."

"How awful! Where's her husband?"

"He passed away some time ago, though they weren't married either."

Suzanne took a closer look at Aelita and saw that she was close to crying.

"Did you know her husband?"

"Yes, I did," the pink haired woman replied. She quickly brushed a tear from her face, then said, "well, I'd better let you get to work on that test data. I've got to get on over to the school; Jeremie is meeting with Desmond and Jim, and he wants me there with him."

"What about?" Suzanne asked.

"The school. Uncle Desi and Jim don't like what the Board's been doing the last couple of years, and this crap about dumping Phys Ed is the last straw. We're going to come up with a way to finally teach those idiots a lesson, and save Kadic from being ruined forever."

* * *

Emily put her lunch tray in the return bin and headed for the door. Just another boring morning of another boring day. One bright spot was that Mrs. Della Robbia was teaching math today instead of Mrs. Meyer. She had mentioned at the beginning of class that their math teacher was out sick, and she would be filling in for the next few days. That meant she might actually learn something this week. Mrs. Della Robbia also had a way of making math fun; something she once said she was surprised at, because she hated math when she was in school.

Emily walked across campus to the Administration Building. She always dropped in and said hi to her father before starting the afternoon, knowing that he just loved having her drop in. As she was walking, she was suddenly accosted by three people, a girl and two boys. The girl, Ereka Winters sneered, "so, Moralés, going to bat your eyes at daddy and have him fix your grades?"

Her two boy toys du jour snickered at their master's comment.

"Nope, don't need to," she replied, "if I had that kind of power, you would be standing on a street corner somewhere practicing your chosen career. Tell me, Ereka, do you have to change those things out every night, or just when they pop?"

To emphasize her last statement, Emily took a pencil from her pocket, one with a nice sharp point, and jabbed it in the general direction of Ereka's chest. The girl squealed and jumped back, frightened.

"I'm telling your father about this!" the girl raged. Emily just snickered.

"Okay, fine; let's go; I was heading there anyway. I'd rather be chewed out by him than have to listen to your crap any day."

With that, Emily turned and left. Ereka, as she guessed, just huffed and walked off in another direction, her testosterone train in tow.

She walked in to the principal's office and sat down, noticing that daddy's door was shut and there were voices talking inside.

_Probably another tirade on the stupid Board of Governors,_ she thought to herself.

Then, the door opened up and people started filing out. Mr. and Mrs. Della Robbia emerged first, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Belpois, her next door neighbors. Finally, Mr. Hopper and her father stepped out, although daddy stayed in the doorway.

"You know, for the first time in a long time, I'm looking forward to the next Board meeting," her father said to the exiting group.

"Yeah, I think I hear a bell ringing someplace," Mr. Della Robbia replied, "'cause the Board's about to get schooled."

The adults filed out, and her father noticed Emily sitting there waiting.

"Hey, squirt! How was class this morning?"

"Good, daddy, Mrs. Della Robbia taught math, so the day was pretty much salvaged," she replied, smiling as she walked into his office.

"Oh, and daddy? Ah, I might have gone a liiiitle bit over the edge with Ereka Winters just now..."

* * *

Suzanne sat at her workstation and examined the test data from the last chip test. From what she could see, everything was spec on right up to the end when the chip failed. Suzanne had been working with the technology for years now, and couldn't understand why she was seeing what she was seeing.

A chime sounded on her workstation, and a window popped open. An image in the window resolved itself into Adam, from the Lyoko office.

"Oh, SuzanneMoralés, I thought you might be EmilyMoralés," the man said, "I apologize if I interrupted you, but I was hoping to speak with her for a few minutes."

"Emily is at school right now," Suzanne replied, "she won't be home until early this evening. You wouldn't happen to be the friend she's been conversing with now, are you?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am," he replied, "and I assure you I have done nothing untoward to Emily. I just happen to enjoy her company, and was hoping to converse with her a while this afternoon."

Suzanne looked at the image of the young man on her display. He looked to be about as old as Emily herself, about thirteen or fourteen. She had spoken to him in the past, and he was a polite and intelligent boy. Suzanne often wondered why Adam, and some of the others from the 'Lyoko office' were working at such a young age. _I must ask Aelita or Jeremie about that sometime,_ she thought.

"I'm sorry, Adam, but I'm going to have to disappoint you. Emily is not to be using this workstation for her own amusement. And I'm a little concerned that one of my coworkers is having any kind of relationship with my only daughter, so I must ask you not to contact her again, and not to contact this workstation unless you wish to discuss something work related with me."

"Yes, SuzanneMoralés, I understand," Adam replied, "I apologize for my rudeness."

With that, Adam disappeared.

_Well, if he is a stalker, he's the most polite one I've ever met, _Suzanne thought to herself, _but still, I'd better talk to either Aelita or Zoe about this before it gets out of hand._

* * *

Emily was surrounded and in deep trouble. The two men were approaching her from opposite sides, each one trying to catch her attention so the other could move in and attack. And they had the perfect thing to catch her attention with too, knives. Every now and then, one of them would flip his blade around, holding it blade away from her along his forearm, then suddenly flip it back around towards her, slowly waving about like a cobra ready to strike.

She kept looking about for an escape route while keeping the men's position in her mind. Suddenly, the one just behind her left shoulder lunged forward to strike, his knife reversed against his forearm. She quickly dodged in the other direction, straight into the other attacker. Instead of dodging away this time, she twisted in between the extended knife blade and his body. her hand reached out and grabbed the wrist of his knife wielding hand, and with her other hand, she forced him off balance, throwing him into the path of us partner. The two men collided, sending them both to the ground. Emily backpedaled away from the men, then turned to run.

"Alright! That's my girl!" her father shouted from the sidelines.

Emily stopped and turned back to the scene she had just left, and beamed a huge smile. Her father was standing just off the mat in the gymnasium, and the two 'attackers' were in the process of unraveling themselves. They finally separated and stood up.

"I didn't hurt you too much, did I Uncle Sanka?" Emily asked one of the men.

"Only my pride, child, only my pride," replied Mike "Sanka" Coffy.

Next to him, Bill "Gomer" Pyle stood, grinning. "You've gotten a lot sneakier since I was last here," he told the girl, "you haven't been going behind our backs to Amazing Grace, have you?"

"No sir, I haven't spoken with Mrs. Thompson in a couple of years," Emily replied.

Ann "Amazing Grace" Thompson and her husband Taylor, were two of Sanka and Gomer's best friends from their days in the service. Years before Emily had been born, they all had served in the United States Embassy in Paris, and somehow or another gotten to know both of her parents. Every so often, one or more of the Americans visited her parents, and the Belpois, and Emily made it a point to be there every time they came. The Thompsons had stopped coming a couple years back, and her father had said it was because they had retired. When she asked him retired from what, he shook his head and said he didn't know, but that's what they had told him and her mother.

"So, fellas, would you care to drop by the house and do some 12 ounce curls?" her father asked.

"Wish we could, Jim," Sanka replied, "but we've already got a date for tonight. We're going bar crawling with Odd."

"Della Robbia still parties? I would think he'd be a homebody, what with his daughter and all."

"I am more than reasonably certain that Mr. Della Robbia will not be knocking them back as hard as we will," Sanka said, "he's already said that he's going to make and early night of it, so if he has over three, I'll be surprised."

"Have you guys got a place to crash? I've still got the rollaways." her father offered next.

"Nope, we're good there," Gomer replied, "we're not really leaving the area, so we should be able to stagger on back to our hotel rooms."

"Well, okay. But you give a shout if you need any help, fellas. And thanks for tossing the squirt around today, she really loves playing with you two."

"Oh, just wait until she turns sixteen," Sanka said with a smirk, "she'll just _love_ playing with all of the boys then!"

With a wink in her direction, her two adopted uncles said their goodbyes and made their way out for a night of drinking and carousing.

"Well Em, hit the showers. Mom's probably waiting with dinner on the table, and you know how she gets if we're late."


	4. Babysitters

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

"Arrrgh!" Suzanne Moralés shouted in frustration. For the last two weeks, she had been pouring over and over the test results from the last failed chip test, and couldn't find a damn thing wrong. Every step was perfect, right up to the failure. There was no indications of a fault anywhere before that point. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. _I'm getting nowhere on this, _she thought.

Her mind shifted focus to her other problem, the boy Adam. After her conversation with him, she did in fact contact Zoe and had a talk with her. Zoe said that Adam meant no harm, but she had told him in no uncertain terms not to contact Emily again. Zoe also promised that Adam would not be a bother any more and terminated the connection. And true to her word, Adam never reappeared on her workstation.

Suzanne briefly wondered what became of the boy. Zoe had a particularly harsh look on her face when she told the woman about him, like he had deliberately gone behind her back; which he probably did. The woman hoped she hadn't accidentally opened a can of worms for the boy, but he really did need to stay away.

She finally set that thought aside and returned to her main problem, the chip failure. She rolled the problem around in her head for a few more minutes, then reached out and started typing on her workstation. After a few seconds, Aelita's face appeared in a window on her display.

"Aelita, I've been thinking about it, and I need to see the chip," Suzanne said without preamble.

"That's not possible," the pink haired woman replied, "it's in Japan, still in the test harness. Our protocols specifically state that a test chip is not to be removed in case of a failure, so it can be examined in situ."

"But the only thing I can think of is that one of the circuits was damaged in fabrication," Suzanne said, "that's about the only thing I can think of that would explain what I'm seeing, short of a design flaw. I've got to see the chip before I can make that call."

"Then there's only one thing for you to do," Aelita replied, "if the chip can't come to you, you'll just have to go to the chip. I'll start making the arrangements."

* * *

"So, just like that, you're flying out to Kyoto tomorrow," Jim asked his wife that evening at dinner.

"No Jim, not just me," she replied, "Aelita made it perfectly clear that you and Emily could join me, on the company's tab, if you want to."

"That'd be great, mom!" Emily piped in, "I'd love to see Japan! It'd..."

Jim interrupted his daughter, "no, Emily. You can't just up and miss, what, a week of school? And I have preparations I need to make for that Board meeting."

"Jim, I spoke to Desmond, and he can make all of the necessary preparations," Suzanne replied, "and quite frankly, my dear, you need some time away."

"But what about Emily? She really can't go this time around, and we can't leave her here all by herself."

"Jeremie and Aelita said they would watch out for her while we're gone," Suzanne said, clearly having thought the matter and her husband's objections through, "and I've also heard that Yumi and Ulrich are just dying to see us again. Aelita even mentioned something about tickets to a sumo tournament this weekend."

Jim Moralés froze up. He was a sumo fanatic, and had always wanted to see a live match.

"Aelita also said that Ulrich might be able to get you back to meet the current champion," Suzanne added with a smile, knowing she had her fish.

"Well... are you sure it won't be too much trouble? I mean, a week..."

"It will be no bother at all, dear."

* * *

Her parents flew out Tuesday night. There was the usual scene at the airport, her mother hugging her and telling her to be good for the Belpois; her father mussing her hair after kissing her and telling her to stay out of trouble. Then it was through the security checkpoint, and Emily was alone with two people she really didn't know that well.

Mr. and Mrs. Belpois had been Emily's neighbors for all her life. She knew that her mother worked with Mrs. Belpois, and that they had actually gone to Kadic Academy when her mother and father taught there. The girl had been to their house quite a few times, and Mrs. Belpois had always said that the girl was welcome any time. She really didn't know what Mr. Belpois did; her mom had said that he was part owner of Hopper Electronics, but he didn't spend all that much time there. He evidently did something else that no one really knew about. Uncle Sanka once jokingly said that Mr. Belpois was a spy, and he worked sometimes for Mr. Belpois; but the way he said it made Emily doubt he was telling the truth.

They pulled up in front of the Hermitage and everyone got out. Mr. Belpois came around and took Emily's suitcase. They all then walked up and went inside.

"I hope you'll be comfortable while you're here," Mrs. Belpois said, "now, one of the first things we're going to do is go over the rules."

Emily's face dropped when she heard that.

"Rule number one, no sad faces unless there's a good reason for it," the woman said with a smile, "the other rules are mostly common sense and courtesy."

She led the girl over to a room that was clearly an office. "This is our office here at home. We'd appreciate it if you didn't come in alone and disturb anything. We keep important and sensitive documents in here, and we don't want them lost or ruined. I believe your mother has a similar rule at home, doesn't she?'

"Yes, ma'am," Emily sullenly replied.

"And it's for the same reason. I'd also ask that you not go downstairs alone. We have things down there that could be dangerous under the wrong circumstances, and we don't want you getting hurt. Now, let's go on upstairs."

When they got upstairs, Mr. Belpois went ahead and put Emily's suitcase in a room, presumably where she would be sleeping.

"Here's the bathroom; you can use it at any time. Jeremie and I use the Master Bathroom off our bedroom. And over here is our bedroom. I would ask that you not explore in there, either. That is Jeremie's and my safe haven away from the cares of the world, so please respect our privacy and don't snoop around."

Mrs. Belpois then took Emily to the room that Mr. Belpois had ducked into.

"This is your room while you are here," she said. Mr. Belpois had set Emily's suitcase on a chair in front of a desk off to one side, and had turned back the covers of the bed. Emily's eyes lit up when she saw a workstation like her mother's sitting on the desk.

"Yes, you can use that workstation while you are here," Mr. Belpois said, "and, as compensation for having to sleep in a strange bed for the next few nights, most of the web site blocking software has been deactivated on it. I don't think you'll be downloading kiddie porn, so I think we can do without it. Act responsibly here and I'll see what I can do to get your mom to loosen up the restraints at home a bit."

"Breakfast is at 6am," she then said, "you mother told me your usual routine is to rise, bathe and dress, then come down for breakfast. You'll find towels in the linen closet next to the bathroom, and if you need anything, just tell us."

"In the morning," she continued, "I will give you my cell phone number, along with Jeremie's. If you need anything during the day, give one of us a call. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Della Robbia are good friends of ours, and your parents asked them to keep an eye on you while you're at school. If something should come up and you can't reach one of us, get in touch with one of them."

"Man, I feel like I'm in prison or something," Emily suddenly said, "I've never had this many people watching out for me before."

"Yes, you have," Mr. Belpois said with a smile, "you just never knew it."


	5. Magician's Poker

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The next morning, Emily was up and ready by 6am. Breakfast was slightly different at the Belpois house: fruit, croissants and coffee, with Emily getting juice and milk instead of the coffee.

When they left the house, Mr. Belpois accompanied her across the street and into the woods.

"I'll walk you to school this morning," he said, "Odd or Elizabeth Della Robbia will walk you home afterwards." Emily just nodded.

"Mr. Belpois, where do you work?" she asked as they walked.

"Call me Jeremie," he replied, "my father is Mr. Belpois. To answer your question, I work over at the Old Factory Building. My office is on the top floor, above Hopper Electronics corporate headquarters."

"Do you work for Hopper Electronics?" Emily asked, "Uncle Sanka once told me that you were a spy, but I don't believe him."

"He shouldn't have told you that! Now I'm going to have to bump you off and stash the body, then track him down and kill him too!" Jeremie said. Emily was shocked until she saw him looking at her with a big grin on his face.

"Ha, ha, gotcha!" he said, then added, "no, I'm not a spy; I do a lot of things, really. One of them is I do is investment work with Aelita's uncle Desmond. You've heard about the Board wanting to cut PE from the curriculum next year? Well, my investment company has quite a stake in the school, and we're going to convince the Board to change its mind."

"That's great!" Emily said, "daddy's been worried about that for so long now. But what happens if the Board won't change their mind?"

"Then we're going to change the Board," he simply replied.

* * *

The day passed quietly for Emily. She caught herself at lunch time before she had made it to the Administration Building. Since her father was out of town, there was no use heading there.

Instead, she walked over to a bench and sat down. Mrs. Della Robbia was teaching math class again, and Emily wasn't sure, but it looked like the woman was looking right at Emily almost the entire class. When she walked by Mr. Della Robbia's art class, he turned from whatever he was doing and looked straight at her until she cleared his doorway. Emily thought back, and sure enough, she had gotten those same reactions from those two about as far back as she could remember. It seemed like either of them would take a good long look at her whenever she entered their field of vision, like they were watching her, or guarding her.

Emily wondered about it for a minute, and what Jeremie said last night, then remembered something her mother told her once when she was a little girl. One night, at bedtime, she had asked her mother if there really were guardian angels. Her mother got an odd look on her face, then replied, "yes there are, Emily, especially in your case. There's always at least one angel watching over you all the time."

Now she wondered if her mother meant the Della Robbias. And maybe the Belpois. Maybe even Uncle Sanka and Uncle Gomer. The afternoon warning bell ended Emily's musings on the matter, so she set them aside and finished her school day.

* * *

The last bell rang and all of the students bolted towards the classroom door, Emily included. Emily ran out of the building and towards the woods and home, when she saw the Della Robbias standing together, talking as they waited for her.

As she walked up, she saw Mr. Della Robbia say something to his wife, to which she responded by taking a swipe at him. He danced away, grinning like an idiot, then bolted off into the woods. Mrs. Della Robbia looked like she was about ready to follow him when she saw Emily.

"Hi, Emily, you got your math homework done?" she said in greeting.

"I thought homework was to be done at home," Emily replied, "but yeah, I've got it."

"Good," she said and they set off in the woods.

"What was that with Mr. Della Robbia?" Emily asked as they walked.

"Ohhhh, nothing," was the reply, "just something I have to take care of later. So, how's the exile going?"

"Not as bad as I thought," Emily replied, "I mean, I've known Mr. and Mrs. Belpois all my life, but I've never spent all that much time around them. And it seems strange that they know so many of the people my mom and dad know; it's almost creepy in a way."

"Well, it's a small world, after all," Mrs. Della Robbia replied with a laugh, "Kadic Academy used to be a real jumping place when we all went to school here."

"Isn't it now?" Emily asked.

"Not like it was," was the reply.

When they finally reached the Hermitage, Mrs. Della Robbia stopped at the edge of the woods.

"Ah, can you make it the rest of the way on your own?" she asked. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else than where she was at the moment.

"Yeah, I'll be fine from here," Emily replied, "is something wrong?"

"No," Mrs. Della Robbia replied, "but you know that something I was going to take care of later? Well, it's later and I need to take care of it. Have a good evening and don't forget to do your homework!"

With that, Mrs. Della Robbia plunged back into the woods.

* * *

Emily got a pleasant surprise that evening when Uncle Sanka and Uncle Gomer showed up.

"What are you guys doing here!" she shouted after they walked in.

"Well, squirt, we've finished our business here, and we're going to spend the evening with some of our favorite people in the world before we go home, which is all the better since they're all under one roof," Sanka said.

"C'mon in, dinner's just about ready," Mrs. Belpois called from the kitchen, "make yourselves at home in the family room."

They walked back to the family room, and found Jeremie already there, sitting on the couch and listening to some music on the audio system. He got up and greeted his two guests, and they sat down and began conversing.

Emily looked around and saw that a card table had been set up in the middle of the room, with poker chips and decks of cards sitting out. The girl didn't have much time to dwell on this, for Mrs. Belpois came in and announced that dinner was served.

Dinner was great and so was the company. Mrs. Belpois mentioned that she had spoken with Emily's mother that day, and they were having a great time in Japan. She was still having trouble figuring out why the chip wasn't working correctly, but everything else was good. Finally, Emily helped Mrs. Belpois clear the table, and they adjourned to the family room.

As they did, Mrs. Belpois said she was going upstairs to change, and she would be right back. Then Jeremie, Uncle Sanka and Uncle Gomer did something unusual, they pulled off their shirts. Underneath, each man was wearing sleeveless undershirts. They laid their discarded garments on the couch, then sat down at the card table.

"What's going on here?" Emily asked, "should I be going up to my room now?"

Jeremie laughed, "no, it's nothing like that! We're just going to play a friendly little game of Magician's Poker."

"What's that?" Emily asked.

"It's a kind of poker we play among ourselves," Mrs. Belpois said as she reentered the room. She had changed into a pair of sweat pants and a short, tight tank top, almost a bikini top, that left little to the imagination.

"Magician's Poker is just like regular poker," she continued, "we like to play five card draw, but you can play it with any kind of poker. In Magician's Poker, there's an additional rule; if you get caught cheating, you lose half your stakes. And, cheating is expected; that's why no shirts. No sleeves to hide cards."

"Part of the skill of this game is being able to manipulate the deck," Gomer said, "and do it in such a way that no one notices until the hand is played out. Heck, you can't make the Corporal's exam without first having to learn how to deal from the bottom of the deck!"

"And you can't make Gunnery Sargent until you can deal seconds," Sanka added, laughing, "so c'mon, pretty lady! Sit your fine self down and let's play us some cards!"

So, Emily spent the evening watching four adults play some of the most cutthroat poker she had ever seen. She had seen her parents play cards with some of their friends on occasion, and she had seen kids at school play poker, blackjack, spades and all those games, but never with the ruthlessness of these people. The moment any one of them got their hands on the deck, the laws of probability went right out the window. And their eyes were sharp too. Both Sanka and Jeremie got quickly caught cheating on the deal, and lost half of their winnings. But at the end of the night, it was Mrs. Belpois that had all of the chips.

"I have got to take you with me the next time I go to Bangkok," Gomer said as they were leaving, "you and me could clean up, Aelita."

"Yeah, if they didn't kill us first," she replied, "no, I think I'll stick to making my money the old fashion way."

With that, Sanka and Gomer got up and redressed. The guests kissed the hostess, tousled Emily's hair and told her they'd be back one day, and took their leave.

"Hm, only ten o'clock," Mrs. Belpois said, looking at the clock after they had left, "those two must be really feeling their age. Well Emily, you had better go on up and get your homework done. It's just about bedtime."

"Mrs. Belpois?" Emily asked.

"Call me Aelita, please," she replied.

"Aelita, how did you win all those hands?"

"Well honey, I cheated, just like I said at the beginning. Every time I got my hands on the deck I got the cards I wanted on the bottom, and dealt them out to myself. The boys never saw a thing."

"But how? I got the impression that they could spot a cheater a mile away!"

"They can, if they're looking at my hands; but they weren't."

"What were they looking at?"

"My chest. Why do you think I wore this tank top?"


	6. The Basement

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The next morning, Thursday, got off to a hectic start. The night before, Emily settled down to sleep at about eleven, after finishing her homework and doing a quick surf of the 'net. But her two guardians, it seemed, stayed up longer, quite a bit longer.

_It's comforting to know that this is a happy home too,_ the girl thought as sleep took her.

Last night's happiness, however, had given way to this morning's chaos.

"Oh, da... I mean crap!" Jeremie had shouted when he looked out his bedroom door and saw Emily walking back to her room from the shower, "Lita, wake up! It's late!"

Aelita just lay where she was, muttering something about four times being enough. He shook her harder, then reached under the covers and did something to her that made her squeal and sit upright. Emily quickly cleared the doorway so she didn't see what the woman wasn't wearing.

Emily dressed and went downstairs. She looked about and found the coffee fixings and set a pot brewing. She wasn't entirely sure how the couple took their 'joe,' as her father sometimes called it, so she set just followed the directions on the container. She then got out some fruit and some butter spread, and started making toast.

Jeremie bolted down the stairs, desperate to make some kind of meal for them, but stopped short when he saw Emily at work.

"I'm not a gourmet chef, but I can make toast," she said to him, "I don't know how Aelita brews your coffee, so I just followed the instructions on the container."

"Aelita doesn't make the coffee, I do," Jeremie said as he walked in, "and thank you, Emily; you didn't have to do this."

"I did if I want to get to school on time," she replied.

Jeremie sat down and ate a bit of fruit. "Ah, we didn't... disturb you last night, did we?"

"No, I slept fine," Emily replied as she joined him at the table, "you know, I've heard kids at school talk about their parents shouting in the night, but I never really understood what the problem was; until I learned that their parents were fighting when they were shouting. Now, I suppose _that_ would disturb my sleep."

* * *

Emily was about to walk out the door for school when Aelita called out from upstairs, "is anybody still home? I need some help."

"I'm still here," Emily called back, "what'cha need?"

"Could you run downstairs to the dryer and bring me my gray slacks? You can't miss them; they're hanging up right next to the laundry room door."

"Sure thing," Emily replied.

She quickly ran downstairs and found said slacks hanging just where Aelita had told her they were. She took them and was about to head back up when something caught her eye.

On the other side of the basement was a door, with a little window set in it. Though the window, she could see a soft glow of light. Curious, she walked over to the door and peeked in.

The glow was coming from a computer display sitting on a workbench, at a comfortable height for typing while standing. The computer the display was attached to was unlike any computer she had seen before. It looked like a normal full tower style case, but the front panel had small displays and controls unlike any she had seen on a PC before. A thick cable ran from the back of the box over to what looked like a large cylinder that ran from floor to ceiling. It was closed now, but the thing looked like it was capable of being opened. The cylinder looked to be about two meters in diameter.

The rest of the little room seemed to be clear, except for a couple of large boxes set before the cylinder. Emily wondered what was in the boxes, as well as what this setup was used for.

"Emily? Have you got it? We both need to go!" Aelita called from upstairs.

"Yeah, I've got them! I'll be right up!" she called back as she headed for the stairs.

_Now that looks interesting,_ Emily thought to herself, _I want to get a closer look at that._

* * *

Emily was distracted by what she had seen in the basement for the rest of the morning. Why would anyone have a computer in their basement? She thought at first that maybe the thing was the house's server; maybe it controlled all of the environmental systems. Her mother told her once that the Belpois had a high speed optical data line from their offices at the Old Factory Building to their home, and Jeremie and Mr. Della Robbia had extended that connection to their house so mom could work from home if she wanted to. That had been a big boon, as that had allowed her mom to stay at home and watch after her as she grew up. But none of that explained the setup she saw in the basement.

Suddenly, a hand tapped her on the shoulder.

"Are you still with us, Emily?" Mrs. Della Robbia asked her. While Emily had been pondering the mysteries of the basement, her substitute math teacher had walked up and was now standing beside her desk. The whole class was looking right at her, tittering at her being caught in her inattention.

"I'm sorry if I disturbed your sleep," she continued, "I know from experience that algebra is a wonderful place to catch up on your beauty rest, but if I could disturb you for a moment, I would like you to come up to the board and help me solve the equation I just wrote up there. It's our lesson for today and I'm sure you will get a lot out of it, since you will be helping me teach it."

_Busted._

Emily sighed as she got up and followed the teacher to the front. She looked at the equation, which extended from one side of the board to the other, and sighed again. She was going to solve _this?_

"The first thing we need to do, class," Mrs. Della Robbia said as she turned away from the board, "is to try and simplify the equation. Can anyone see a good place to start?"

_Yeah, the eraser, _Emily thought. But she did look closer at the equation, and saw something.

"What about this?" she asked, and the lesson began.

* * *

It was early Thursday evening in Kyoto, and Suzanne Moralés sank deeper in the warm water and relaxed. Yumi's parents had a wonderful bath in their home, large enough to accommodate quite a few people, or so Yumi's mother had said. The only thing she had to get used to was the hotter temperature of the water, and having company in the tub with her. It had been a long time since she was last naked with other women.

Across from her in the bath sat Yumi Stern and her mother, Miko Ishiyama. She hadn't seen either woman since Jeremie and Aelita had gotten married almost four years ago. It seemed that a few months after she and Ulrich got married, they just dropped off the face of the earth.

"Anyway, while we were here, my father passed away," Miko was saying, relating how they came to live here, "you may not know this, Suzanne, but my family is Ishiyama, not Takeo's. When he married me, he agreed to take my family name, thereby insuring that my father would have an heir."

"If you looked at it in the wrong way, Miko," Suzanne said, "it sounds like you married your brother."

The other women laughed at that. "We have fought like brother and sister on occasion," the older woman replied, "but, thankfully, those days are long gone."

"And why didn't you go back, Yumi?" Suzanne next asked, "from what Aelita has told me, you had a very good life in America. What happened?"

"Ulrich," she replied, "he got so badly injured during his training, I vowed never to leave his side again. We both were chasing the same thing for so long, we kind of lost track of what was really important in life. We were doing what we needed to do, but not in the way it truly needed to be done. We both realized this after we came to Tokyo with my parents, and decided to stay here, for a while anyway. But lately, we've been thinking that we need to head back to Paris. A lot of the other reasons why we decided to stay here have fairly well been taken care of, and truth be told, I miss Paris, and I miss my friends."

Miko looked at her daughter like this was news to her. Suzanne hoped she hadn't accidentally opened a can of worms for the girl, however innocently she did it.

"Yumi, you never told me," her mother said.

"I know, momma, it just never seemed like the right time," she replied, "I'm not saying we're moving out tomorrow or anything like that; I'm just saying that we're thinking about it."

"So," Suzanne suddenly said, trying to divert an awkward conversation somewhere else, anywhere else, "I think I've found out what's wrong with that damn chip!"

* * *

Emily lay in her bed that night and thought. She actually got to speak with her mom earlier in the afternoon, and she said they would probably be back on Monday. They wanted to spend the weekend there, because her father wanted to go the promised sumo tournament. Her father, Mr. Ishiyama, a Mr. Stern and someone named Toya were going, and daddy was awfully excited at the opportunity.

_So, that means I have the weekend to figure out what that thing in the basement is,_ she thought to herself, _tomorrow's out, what with school and all, so it will have to be Saturday. It shouldn't take too long, then my weekend will be complete._


	7. The Secret

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The next morning, Friday, Aelita was sitting at her workstation, in conference with Zoe, Takeo and Suzanne. When they spoke yesterday afternoon, Suzanne had reported that she had found what the problem was, but needed to discuss the matter privately.

"Like I said last night," Suzanne said, "I found out what the design flaw was. It is not in the chip itself. It also isn't in the quantum circuit the chip generates, at least not the one _I_ know about. What I found out yesterday was that the chip generates a _second_ circuit, one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase with our reality. The flaw is in that circuit. Now, this is a secure channel, and I know we all have privacy at our respective locations, so what I want to know, Aelita, is this: what does this second circuit do, and why wasn't I told about it?"

* * *

It was Friday afternoon, and life was good. Emily didn't have any homework for the weekend, and that was a blessing. She could spend as much time as she needed to find out what was down in the basement.

She walked in the door of the Belpois house to a conversation. Jeremie and Aelita were in their office, talking. The girl quietly crept close and listened in.

"Jeremie, she's found us out," Aelita was saying.

"No she hasn't. All she's found out about was the second circuit. Did you say anything more?" Jeremie replied.

"No, not without talking to you first. What she said about her findings makes me wonder if that's related to what we've been seeing on New Lyoko."

_New Lyoko? What was that?_ Emily thought.

"Maybe it is. What does Zoe have to say about it?"

"She grants that it may be a possibility. She and some of the others are going over the design now. But that's not the real problem. Suzanne threatened to quit if I didn't tell her. She said that since she didn't know what the other circuit was for, then it could be for anything. If I don't tell her what's going on, she'll resign and contact the government. I don't know if we can withstand that kind of scrutiny."

"Aelita, we aren't doing anything illegal," Jeremie said, "we just don't want too many other people in our business. We can tell her about New Lyoko, since that is what this is all about."

"We can't tell her about New Lyoko without telling her about Old Lyoko, _everything_ about it. You know what that means."

"That means that one more person will know what we've done," he said, "one more person will know just how great a man your father truly was. The danger's past, Aelita, there's no way XANA will ever get reconstituted, and we're keeping a good eye out for its followers in case they try something stupid. We've just been keeping these secrets out of habit; maybe it's time to be a little more open, I don't know. But I certainly don't have a problem with Suzanne knowing, or Jim for that matter. We can say it's covered under the Official Secrets Act and bind them to silence. They're good people, and this has touched their lives. Tell her, Aelita, and we'll worry about the consequences later."

"Not without at least asking Odd and Elizabeth first," Aelita replied.

Emily backed away from her listening post, and quietly went upstairs.

_So, the Belpois have a secret,_ she thought as she flopped on the bed, _and it's a Government Secret too. Wow, maybe Jeremie is a spy after all! Who would have thought it!_

The girl paused. _Maybe that thing in the basement is part of the secret. Maybe it has something to do with this 'New Lyoko' they were talking about. Oh, I have definitely got to find out what it is now!_

"Emily! Are you home?" Aelita called from the main floor.

"Yes, ma'am! I'm in my room!" she called back.

"Okay, just so you know, the Della Robbias are coming by this evening, and they're bringing their daughter along."

"Okay! Anything I can do to help?"

"Sure! C'mon down and we'll get started!"

* * *

Dinner arrived and so did the Della Robbias. They both kissed Aelita in greeting, then Mrs. Della Robbia kissed Jeremie. Then Mr. Della Robbia turned to Emily.

"Hello, Emily; I would like you to meet our daughter, Cecilia," he said, indicating the three year old limpet mine attached to his leg.

"Hi, Cecilia, I'm Emily. Would you like to play?" she replied, clearly knowing her role for the evening, not that she minded.

The little girl shook her head no. She was a cute little thing, with dark hair like her mother. She was thin as a whip, which reminded Emily somewhat of her father. She grabbed her father's leg tighter and buried her face in his pant leg.

"As you can see, she's a little shy around strangers," Mr. Della Robbia said, "but she'll warm up to you eventually. C'mon Sissi, let go of daddy's leg. Emily's not going to bite, and if she does, I'm sure she's had her shots."

He bent down and picked his daughter up, who promptly wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. The group walked into the family room, chattering on about the events of the day.

Cecilia did warm up to Emily after about a half hour, and they spent the rest of the evening playing together. Aelita had magically pulled out a box of toys and set them before the girls. Cecilia squealed and pulled out a little doll and began playing with it. Emily got her own and started playing too, slowly drawing the little one out of her shell further. By dinner time, the two girls were running back and forth, playing chase.

Dinner was a riot. Cecilia had definitely decided that everyone was okay, and was squealing and chattering up a storm. Mrs. Della Robbia had her hands full, trying to feed her daughter and hold up her end of the conversation, but she managed like she had been doing it all her life.

After dinner, Aelita turned to Emily and asked, "Emily, could you take Cecilia and go up to your room? We need to discuss some things privately with the Della Robbias, and Sissi would be a distraction."

"Sure," Emily said, "c'mon Sissi, the grownups want to play. Let's go upstairs and see what we can find on the 'net!"

Emily took the child and went upstairs to her room. There, she logged on her workstation, and started surfing the web for something that would entice and entertain a three year old.

"Sissi, is there someplace you like to go to?" the teen asked her charge.

"Big Bird! See Big Bird!" the three year old shouted.

Emily sighed. She should have just gone to Sesame Street in the first place.

While trying to open up the activity site and juggle Sissi, Emily's hand slipped and started another program, the conference program. Suddenly, several windows opened up. In one, Jeremie, Aelita and the Della Robbias were displayed; in another, a Japanese woman and a European man. The last was a woman that Emily had never seen before. She looked Japanese like the one woman, except for the greenish cast to her skin and her pointed ears, making her look like a Vulcan.

Somehow, Emily had started the program in such a way that she could observe the conversation, but not participate in it. And it seemed that the adults didn't know she was watching.

"I'm sorry to pull everyone away, but we have a situation," Jeremie was saying. Emily had to shush Sissi so she could hear.

"Suzanne Moralés has solved our problem with the latest quantum chip," he continued, "however, in the process, she found the second quantum circuit that the chip generates, the one we're using in the New Lyoko project. Suzanne confronted Aelita with the information this morning and threatened to quit if we didn't tell her what was going on. Aelita managed to put her off, but that won't last too long. I'm personally of the opinion that we tell Suzanne everything, along with Jim. That's why I called you together. What do you all think?"

"How critical is Suzanne's participation in this," Mr. Della Robbia asked, "I know she's been a great help so far, but would we be better off without her?"

"I would rather not," Aelita replied, "she has been a great help to us in getting these circuits designed. And I don't want to lose a friend over all of this."

"Do you think she could be an asset in completing New Lyoko?" asked the European man next to the Japanese woman.

"I'd like to think so, Ulrich," Aelita replied, "she and I work real well together. She also works well with Zoe, and your father-in-law thinks very highly of her too."

"I certainly wouldn't mind if SuzanneMoralés knows more about the project," the Vulcan replied, "I have always had a problem with hiding the truth. It 'leaves a bad taste in my mouth;' at least that's how you humans put it. It might be useful to have another individual working on the computer design with us. The current instantiation of New Lyoko will collapse within the next seventy-two hours, according to my calculations. She could be a huge benefit in the next design iteration."

"Thanks, Zoe," Jeremie said, "Yumi, you've been awful quiet. What's your opinion?"

"Tell her, plain and simple," the Japanese woman replied, "I also think you need to tell Elizabeth's father too. We've been keeping this secret far too long, way beyond what's necessary. Personally, I think we ought to call a press conference and spill the whole thing. XANA's gone with no hope of resurrection, and maybe publicizing everything will drive what's left of XANA's followers underground and out of the way."

"I'm not ready to call the press just yet," Jeremie said, "I don't know how they'd react if they found out that every Hopper computer in existence has a secondary purpose of driving a quantum computer to maintain a fully functioning planetary system."

Emily was rocked by that statement. _A planetary system?_

"It's only necessary for the computer to generate the system for a short period of time," Zoe added, "once the final parameters are in place, we can move my children to New Lyoko then launch the final routines to separate that world from yours."

"That won't be for a long time, Zoe," Jeremie said, "and it won't happen at all unless we get the bug worked out of this latest chip. So, does anyone have any object..."

Emily was interrupted by Sissi's crying. The girl reluctantly closed down the conference, not hearing how it would turn out, and surfed over to Sesame Street.

"There you go, Sissi," Emily cooed to the child, "there's Big Bird. Just a little diversion on the way to Sesame Street."

She clicked on an activity icon, and Burt and Ernie went into a song about pigeons and oatmeal.

As the three year old sat in her lap, entranced, Emily thought about what she had heard.

_A quantum computer generating a planetary system. A world and a sun, at least. And they're working with aliens to do it. What have I gotten myself into?_


	8. Down The Rabbit Hole

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

After overhearing the conversation she had the night before, Emily almost abandoned her plan to check out the equipment in the basement the next day, but her curiosity won out over her concern.

That morning, Jeremie said that he had to run over to his office to coordinate a few things. Aelita shot him a dirty look, like he was ducking out of something. He just grinned and shrugged his shoulders, then got up and left before his wife could do something more lethal to him.

"Well, Emily, it's just you and me today," Aelita said after he had left, "did you have any plans for today? Did you want to visit friends?"

"No ma'am," she replied, "truth be told, I don't really have all that many friends my age, what with my dad being the principal and all. Besides, I've always been more comfortable around adults than kids anyway."

"You certainly handled Sissi well last night," Aelita said, "and you can probably expect a call from Elizabeth in the near future. I think she may use you for babysitting duties, and give her father a break."

The prospect of money coming in certainly didn't bother Emily too much.

"Oh, one more thing. I'll be working in the basement a lot today, so I'd appreciate it if you stay upstairs and keep an ear out for the front door. I'm expecting a delivery, and it's important. Could you do that?"

"Sure, no problem."

The rest of the morning was dull. Emily sat and watched television in the family room while Aelita worked downstairs. At one time, the girl heard a low _thrumm, _and the tv picture crazed for a second, but the sound and the interference stopped after a second.

Then came the expected knock on the door. Emily ran to the front, opened the door and saw a delivery man standing there. His truck was parked on the street in front of the house.

"I have a delivery for Belpois," the man said.

"Sure, this is the place," Emily replied, "I'll get Mrs. Belpois."

She went downstairs and looked about. Sure enough, Aelita was in the room Emily wanted to explore.

"Aelita, your delivery is here!" she called from the other end.

"Alright sweetheart, I'll take it from here. You go on back upstairs, okay?"

"Okay!"

With that, Emily slipped into the laundry room. After a moment, Aelita walked by and went upstairs. Emily didn't leave until she heard the woman talking to the delivery man, telling him to bring the delivery around to the basement door.

Seizing the opportunity, Emily quietly emerged from the laundry room, and made her way to the other room. In her rush, Aelita had left the door ajar, so Emily had no trouble getting in. Once inside, she carefully closed the door back to where she had originally found it, and looked around.

It looked like the room had once been a furnace room. There were indications that a boiler once stood in here, but that had long been replaced by other things. Emily walked over to the computer that had caught her eye earlier in the week and looked closely at the display. It read, _Scanner Ready._

There were other things on the display, something about last transport successful, so many objects of such and such a type transferred, and then the girl saw it, a reference to New Lyoko. It looked like geographic coordinates, like whatever was transported was sent to that location.

_So, they're beaming stuff to this New Lyoko. I wonder what they're sending?_

Emily then turned her attention to the cylinder. Just as she had thought, the thing could be opened, because it was. It was hollow inside, except for some boxes that were sitting inside of it. Emily walked over and went in the cylinder. She looked down at the top box, then gently pried it open. Inside was what looked like camping equipment.

_So, the Vulcans need camping equipment?_

Suddenly, Emily heard Aelita returning. There was no way she could exit without revealing what she was doing to the woman, so she did the only thing she could think of, she ducked down behind the boxes in the back of the cylinder.

"Just leave the boxes there; I'll move them later," Aelita was telling the delivery man, "and thanks again for coming out on a Saturday, we really appreciate it!"

Aelita walked into the room, shut the door and let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm glad it got here. That's the last of the supplies for now. Though I wonder why I'm even bothering, given what we know now."

Aelita walked over to the computer display and began typing. Emily was peeking over the top of the boxes hiding her. Aelita typed one last thing, and the cylinder doors began to close.

"Wait!" Emily called out just after they closed. Then, over a speaker she heard, "Adam, prepare for the next shipment. Transfer will begin on my mark in three... two... one... mark!"

Suddenly, a bright light filled the cylinder, and the _thrumm_ she had heard earlier started up again. Then it seemed like a wind blew up from the floor, and Emily and the boxes were lifted up. Then the bright light engulfed her and she couldn't see, or feel, anything else.

* * *

Aelita looked at the display when the alarm beeped. The message indicated that the transfer was successful, with warnings. She quickly scrolled down the screen, looking for the warning. She quickly found it; a line of orange against a tide of green lines:

_Unpatterned biological transferred. Initial identification: human. Transfer continued without modification._

_Unpatterned biological?_ Aelita thought, _human? Emily!_

"Oh my God!"

* * *

When Emily could see again, she saw that she was no longer in the cylinder. She wasn't even in the Belpois basement anymore. She was outside, in what looked like a prairie somewhere.

She and the boxes she was hiding behind were now on some kind of platform set into the ground. Off to one side was what looked like a small shed or building. And someone was walking out of its door.

A young man walked out, and stopped when he saw her. He was about her age, and well tanned. And well muscled. He was wearing nothing but a loincloth and sandals, so she could see every ripple of the boy's abdomen. He stood there, staring for a moment, then he spoke.

"EmilyMoralés? Is that really you?"

She turned and looked closer at him, then recognized him.

"Adam!"

She ran over and threw herself in his arms, glad to see a familiar face here.

"EmilyMoralés, what are you doing here? You should not be on New Lyoko at all!" Adam's voice was full of concern when he said this.

"I kinda got here by accident," she replied, "I snuck in the Belpois basement, into the room where they had this cylinder thing..."

"The scanner, yes, I know what you mean," he quickly replied, "EmilyMoralés, we have to get you out of here. New Lyoko is unstable and may collapse at any moment. The only reason I'm still here is because I'm helping to study what is going wrong."

"Well, my mother may have found that," Emily said, "I overheard that she found something in the second circuit the new chip she's been working on generates. That might have something to do with what's going on here."

"And you came here to tell me that?" he replied.

"No, I kinda got sent here by accident."

"I see. We both seems to be exiles then. Come, let's get out of the sun. I need to tell AelitaBelpois what has happened."


	9. Experiments

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

They entered the shack to the sound of a frantic Aelita Belpois calling out from a monitor.

"Adam! Adam, talk to me! Tell me she made it there!"

"Yes, AelitaBelpois, EmilyMoralés arrived here safely. Here she is."

Emily walked up to the monitor. "Uh, hi, Aelita," she said sheepishly.

"Honey, are you alright? Is there any pain anywhere, and I mean anywhere? Any numbness? Anything out of the ordinary?" the pink haired woman in the display asked.

"No, I'm fine so far," Emily replied, "I guess I did something stupid, huh?"

"I won't put a pretty face on it; you're in danger," Aelita replied, "you are in a place called New Lyoko, a virtual world we've been working on for a little while now. The problem is that New Lyoko is only a prototype, and an unstable one at that. Sometime either today or tomorrow, it will completely break down and disappear, along with everything in it. We've never sent people from Earth there before, and it may not be possible for me to get you back. For right now, I want you to stay with Adam. Don't wander off on your own anywhere. I know you're in a prairie region and it looks safe, but don't go exploring. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to get you back."

"I'll stay here, Aelita," Emily replied.

Aelita's image disappeared from the display, and Emily turned to Adam.

"So, what do you do for entertainment around here?"

* * *

As soon as Aelita closed the communication window, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed. Her fingers were shaky on the keys, and her eyes were starting to blur from the tears she had been holding back. She had to do this one thing before she could allow herself the breakdown she so desperately needed.

"This is Jeremie," came his blessed voice in her receiver.

"Jeremie, come home right now!" she almost screamed, "Emily got sent to New Lyoko! I need help getting her back!"

"'Lita, calm down," Jeremie replied evenly.

"Jeremie, you don't understand. She was transferred from the scanner in the basement; the one we were using to test the matter transformation routines."

"Oh, crap," was his answer. There was a moment of silence, then he said, "don't touch anything. I can't get a way at this second, but I'll cut short what I'm doing and get right home. Don't worry, we'll figure something out."

With that, Jeremie ended the call. Aelita closed her cell and left the scanner room. She made it as far as the basement stairs before her emotions overwhelmed her. She collapsed on the stairs and began sobbing uncontrollably.

* * *

"The only entertainment we have here at the moment," Adam said to Emily, "is to continue with the experiments that I was working on."

He walked over to a box, rummaged around inside of it and pulled something out.

"Well, let's experiment with this now," he said, turning the object around in his hands.

Emily took a close look and laughed. Adam was holding a box of oatmeal flakes.

"I saw something like this in another box," he was saying, "but I can't find a use for it. It is kind of coarse, so I thought is was some kind of scrubbing compound, but my using it that way didn't work too well. I then tried scrubbing myself with it, but that didn't work out well either. This comes from your world, tell me what it is."

It took the girl a moment to stop her laughter, but she did and told him, "it's called oatmeal, and it is food. We eat it for energy."

"What a remarkable concept!" Adam said, "I have been wondering how I was supposed to recharge myself. Up to now, I have been returning to Lyoko when my life points started to fall below a certain level. And keeping track of that here is more difficult for some reason. Tell me, when do you know you need to replenish you energy?"

"We get a feeling in our stomachs," Emily said, using her hand to show him where the stomach is. "There's a rumbling or a gnawing feeling here. That tells us we are in a state called 'hunger'' and we must eat food."

"That explains it!" Adam said, "I've felt something like that several times, and it got worse. At one point in time, I thought I was going to devirtualize because of it. So, what do we do to eat food?'"

"Let me show you," Emily said, smiling. She began rummaging through the boxes that had been stacked, trying to find what she needed to fix the oatmeal.

She quickly found a pot to heat the oatmeal in, and some utensils to help her prepare it. It looked like the Belpois had sent just about everything a person would need to set up a home on New Lyoko, everything except the knowledge of how to use it.

"Now, I need some water," she said, "is there any close by?"

"Water?"

"Yeah, wet stuff. H-2-O, water."

"I do not know," Adam replied, "we do not have water on Lyoko, at least not that I was ever told."

"Is there any place around here that looks like a big cut in the ground," Emily tried, "with something else flowing in it?"

"Now that I think of it, there is a small Digital Sea flowing close to here," he replied, "I stay away from it because I don't want to devirtualize on this strange world away from my family."

"Can you show it to me?" she asked.

"Yes, if you want. It is this way."

He pointed in one direction, then started walking. Emily grabbed a small pot and followed.

* * *

As soon as Jeremie hung up with Aelita, he told the people he had been talking with that he had a small emergency at home to attend to, then excused himself. Desmond Hopper, who was one of the attendees, gave his nephew-in-law an odd look. Jeremie's return look said, _I'll tell you later._

He quickly returned home and called out for Aelita. Hearing her soft cries from the stairwell, he went over and saw her collapsed at the bottom of the basement stairs.

"Are you alright?" he asked as he joined her.

"I'm not hurt," she replied, still sobbing, "Jeremie, I've killed her! We'll never be able to get her back! The best we can hope for is that she can make a life in Lyoko."

"Now, now, nothing is set in concrete yet," he told her, taking her in his arms and comforting her, "the first thing we need to do is reconstruct what happened. We can go to the control station, and you can show me the warning message you got. Then we can trace it back and locate it in the code to find out what really happened. Once we know that, we'll know better how to get her back."

"But what if we can't? What if we find out she can't ever return to earth?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now, c'mon. Show me what you've got. We'll worry about 'what if' when it happens."

* * *

The Digital Sea that Adam had found was a stream. Emily walked up to it, squatted down and dipped her hand in. Adam screamed and tried to stop her, but it was too late. He was visibly relieved when her hand emerged fully intact, and she didn't disappear. Emily carefully brought the liquid up to her face, then sniffed it. There was no odor she could smell, so she stuck her tongue in the fluid. It registered water. Lastly, she slurped it in and swallowed. It went down with no nasty surprises, at least not yet.

"Well, short of some kind of chemical testing, this is water," she said to Adam, who looked at her like she was crazy. Taking the pot she had brought with her, she dipped out a pot full of water then turned to Adam.

"Okay, we've got water. Now, all we need is fire and we're set."

"Good," Adam replied, though his face said it was anything but good, "what is fire?"

* * *

Jeremie looked up from the code he had been studying. Once he had seen the warning message Aelita got during the transfer, he was able to quickly find the code in the program that generated it.

"You may be right," was all he said, "the program was in the process of converting the data stream from Earth matter to Lyokoan matter. Everything else that was sent, even Emily's clothes, successfully made the conversion. However, she didn't. She's now running around on New Lyoko, made of Lyokoan matter, and without the necessary data to reconstruct her into Earth matter. If we bring her back like she is, she won't last eighteen hours."


	10. Death Sentence

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Emily Moralés never realized just how much of life she took for granted, until she had to explain the simplest things to Adam. Evidently, on this Lyoko world he came from, they didn't have anything like fire, nor the need. So she had to painstakingly explain every little thing to Adam as she cooked the oatmeal. Then she had to show him how to eat it.

Adam nearly choked himself on the first attempt, and almost didn't try again. But his stomach overrode his fears, and he tried it again, successfully this time. As Emily watched, he would carefully scoop up some of the food in a spoon she had given him, then carefully place it in his mouth. When he swallowed, he had to consciously tell his throat to close the air passage way so the food would get to his stomach.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked him after he had stopped.

"This is a truly unique experience!" he exclaimed, "the sensations when the food entered my mouth just about overloaded my mind! And, I could feel it slide all the way into me, right to here!" He patted himself on the stomach to show her what she meant.

"Yeah. Now, your body is going to break the oatmeal down into its component parts, take what it needs and push the rest along."

"Along where?"

"Oh boy, I forgot about that." Emily was silent for a moment, then said, "you know you've got a mouth where food goes in? Well, there's another opening where the food comes out..."

The explanation of advanced biology was interrupted by a noise from the workstation display.

"Emily, are you there?" came Jeremie's voice as his image popped up on the display. Emily quickly got up and went over to the screen.

"Yeah, I'm here," she replied, "say, when were you going to teach Adam the facts of life? And I'm not talking about where babies come from!"

"I know where babies come from," Adam piped in, "they come from a tower. I have made three now. Why would that be different here?"

Emily just stood there in stunned silence.

"Emily, you have to understand," Jeremie said to the girl, "Adam comes from an entirely different place. It didn't naturally form over billions of years; and it wasn't created by an all powerful and all knowing being. It was created by a man who only wanted a place to be safe. Adam is working within the parameters and experience he has. But you are right, we've neglected to teach him anything about the new form he and his people will take when they finally come there. But that's a conversation for another time. You have a problem."

"I gathered that," Emily replied, "let me guess, you can't bring me back."

"That's what it looks like," Jeremie said, "what you stepped into was a scanner for a quantum teleporter. It scans the quantum particles of your body, duplicates them in another location, then destroys the original ones. How this happens is that during the deconstruction process, a data stream is created with the coordinates and type of all the particles contained in it. On the other end, the data stream is used to reconstruct you."

"Okay, I understood about one-tenth of what you just said," Emily said, "just get to the bad part."

"The bad part is," Jeremie went on, "is that matter in Lyoko is different from matter on Earth. Aelita and I found out a few years ago that matter from Lyoko is missing certain quantum particles needed to keep it intact on Earth. After about fourteen hours, it starts breaking down, totally disintegrating in forty-eight. Unfortunately, for a living being, after about eighteen hours, they begin to die."

"So, I was sent from Earth. Won't I get all my particles back when you bring me back?"

"That's the bad part. It looks like when you were transferred, the particles were stripped out with no mapping of where they were taken from. If we were to bring you back, you would be composed of Lyoko matter. You'd die."

Emily was silent for a long time. Then she softly said, "I really screwed up, didn't I?"

"No, you didn't," suddenly came Aelita's voice, "we screwed up! We should have allowed for the possibility that someone from Earth would get sent there! I should have checked the scanner before I transferred you! It's not your fault!"

"Nor have we given up," Jeremie added, "I swear to you, Emily, I will do everything I can to get you back."

With that, Emily closed the session. She stood there for a moment, then turned and ran from the shack.

"EmilyMoralés! Wait!" Adam called out to her. When she didn't stop, he ran after her.

She ran until she came back to the stream they had visited earlier. She stopped at the edge and down at her reflection in the water. She didn't look any different in the reflection than she would have on Earth. She sat down, heedless of the water at the edge getting her seat wet, and pulled her shoes off. She stuck her feet into the stream, letting the cool water flow across them. Water was familiar, it was a link to home, her home.

That was how Adam came upon her, sitting on the bank of the stream, every now and then putting her feet in the water and thinking. Something told him not to approach yet, that she wasn't ready for his company.

Emily looked out on the water, watching it flow by. Every now and then, she would dip a bare foot into its cool wetness, and concentrate on the feeling of it rushing over her foot and between her toes. It didn't feel any different than water on Earth, but she now knew it was.

_I can just see it,_ she thought, _I take a glass of this water back to Earth, and eighteen hours later it disappears, along with the glass it came in. Just like I will._

Suddenly, she felt a hand touch her shoulder.

"Are you ready to accept companionship now?" Adam asked her.

She turned and watched as the boy sat down beside her. "That water still terrifies me," he said, "on Lyoko, all of the lands we live on are surrounded by a great Digital Sea. If we fall into it, we are destroyed. Water looks just like the Digital Sea, but it does not destroy us. It helps keep us alive, here anyway."

"I can't go home," was all Emily said. Tears started to flow from her eyes and she threw herself in his arms and began crying softly into his chest. He didn't say a thing; he only wrapped his arms around her and held her close. This was a another new thing to him, and he didn't totally understand it. But he did understand that now was not the time to ask her what she was doing, now was the time to just let her do it.

* * *

After losing contact with Emily, Aelita and Jeremie went back upstairs. Aelita was still visibly upset over what had happened, and Jeremie was trying his best to soothe her.

"We need to tell Suzanne," she said, "she has a right to know."

"And what do we tell her," Jeremie said, "your daughter has been magically transported to another world that will break down in at most eighteen hours and, oh by the way, there's no way we can bring her back to Earth?"

"If that's the truth, yes," Aelita replied.

"We don't know that's the truth yet," he told her, "that's what I've been trying to tell you all along. It _looks_ like she was converted to Lyoko matter, but I'm not entirely sure. I do know that I modified the original Lyoko virtualization program from the supercomputer when I wrote the one used downstairs. I remember adding the code to do the Earth to Lyoko matter conversion. But I don't remember removing the original conversion routine."

"Then that means..."

"Then that means that there is a distinct possibility that Emily was never converted to Lyoko matter, and we should be able to devirtualize her back here, or over at the factory, with no problems. I need to dig a little further into the code to confirm my suspicions, and I will probably have to scan her before I can make any final determination."

"Then why didn't you tell her that! Why didn't you tell me for that matter?!"

"Because I don't know. Also, Emily broke the connection before I could say anything more. The last thing I want to do is give her hope, then dash them if I'm wrong."

"Well, it's not going to matter a damn bit if she commits suicide because she thinks there's no other way out! She has to know there is some hope, Jeremie! Even if that means I have to go to New Lyoko to tell her!"

"You!"

"Yes, me," Aelita said, "it was my mistake. You know these programs better than I do, so you'll be better able to confirm the truth. I am going there to tell her, to be with her. And if that means I'm trapped on New Lyoko or Lyoko forever, then that's what it means."

She turned and went back to the scanner room in the basement.

"You can either send me, or I will send myself. Either way, I'm going."


	11. Chaperons and Other Disturbances

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Adam didn't know how long he sat there cradling Emily as she cried. He just held her as she processed the fear running through her. He had never experienced such feelings in another being before, and wasn't sure if he should be doing something more. In some ways, it seemed like Emily was trying to be intimate with him, but that was impossible here; he had heard that from some of the others who had spent time on one of the earlier New Lyoko prototypes they had created.

As they sat by the stream, they began to feel a rumble building up in the ground beneath them. Adam saw the water in the stream troubled by the rumbling, which was growing stronger. Emily, her face stained with tears, looked up and asked, "what's that?"

"I do not know," Adam replied, "I have felt it every now and then since I have been here. JeremieBelpois has told me that is related to New Lyoko's instability. We should go back to the shack and report this."

"Alright," she said as she let go of him and stood up. She rubbed her face with her hands to wipe away the tears, then followed Adam as he started back. About half way back to the shack, the rumbling stopped. When they finally reached their destination, there was a surprise waiting for them.

"Aelita!" Emily shouted as she recognized the pink haired woman standing at the entrance to the little building.

"Emily! Are you okay?" she replied as the girl threw herself in the woman's arms.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Emily was saying, tears starting to flow again. She buried her face in Aelita's chest. The woman wrapped her arms around the girl and hugged her close.

"It wasn't your fault," she said, starting to weep herself, "we've told you that. But there's something we didn't tell you. There may be a good possibility that we will be able to get you home, that what Jeremie told you didn't really happen."

"Really?" Emily stopped her sobbing and looked Aelita in the eyes.

"Really, that's why I came here. Jeremie's looking at the transfer program now to make sure exactly what had happened. If everything looks okay, we'll transfer you back."

"And if not?" Emily asked, not quite letting go of her worst fears.

"Then we both are stuck, either here or on Lyoko," Aelita said, "if I can't protect you from harm, then the least I can do is share the danger with you."

"AelitaBelpois," Adam interrupted, "did you feel the shaking just now?"

"Yes," Aelita replied, "and we need to tell Jeremie."

The all went back inside and Aelita contacted her husband.

"Jeremie, there's been another tremor," Aelita said when the connection opened, "it wasn't serious, but you could definitely feel it here."

There was a moment of silence, then Jeremie replied, "yeah, I just ran a check and New Lyoko is starting to destabilize. I'm going to have to contact Zoe for a firmer estimate, but I figure the whole thing will break down in twelve hours."

"That don't sound too bad," Emily said.

"That's how long it will take for the entire quantum pocket to completely break down," Jeremie said, "the planet might be gone much sooner."

"What do we do, Jeremie?" Aelita asked.

"My gut reaction is to transfer you both back right now," the genius replied, "the only risk is if I'm wrong about you both not being converted to Lyokoan matter."

"What about Adam? What happens to him?" Emily said.

"Don't worry about me, EmilyMoralés," Adam said, "there is a transport tower to Lyoko close by. I will simply go there and go home."

"Yes, and that's your fallback plan if something happens to your current location," Jeremie said, "that tower is about two kilometers northeast of your current position. If something should happen to damage the transfer point where you are, abandon it and head to the tower. If we can get you home, we should be able to do it from Lyoko as well as from there."

"Alright Jeremie," Aelita said, "for now, why don't you get back to looking at that transfer code. The sun is going down here, so we need to settle in for the night."

"Okay. Contact me or Zoe if anything happens."

With that, Jeremie ended the session.

"Well, we need to get some light set up here," Aelita said, "I believe I sent some flashlights and lanterns on one of my deliveries, so let's find them and get them lit."

They set about finding the illumination. The search helped calm Emily down quite a bit. It was something small and real she could put her mind as well as her hands around. She quickly found the box where the flashlights were stored.

"I've got flashlights!" she called out triumphantly.

"And I've got lanterns," Aelita added.

Now that they had light, they needed shelter. This caused a little bit of a misunderstanding.

"What, you wish to stay with me here tonight?" Adam said, "I am honored that you both would share your privacy with me, but I am not sure I should accept. I know you are bonded with JeremieBelpois, AelitaBelpois, and I do not know if he would understand our being intimate together. And as for EmilyMoralés, I was told by both MotherZoe and SuzanneMoralés to have no contact with her. Somehow, I think that includes intimacy."

Emily looked at the boy with a puzzled look on her face, while Aelita just shook her head and laughed.

"Adam, this is not an invitation to intimacy," she said, "on our world, persons can share a hut and privacy without the necessity of intimacy. Besides, Emily is not yet mature enough to partake of that particular activity; and while I think you're cute, you aren't my type. So, what we're going to do is, you are going to sleep over there on that side of the shack, and Emily and I will sleep over here."

"Does that mean that you and Emily will be intimate then?" Adam said.

"No," Aelita flatly replied, "what did I just say? Privacy does not imply intimacy. That little fact has only recently cropped up on Lyoko, if I remember correctly."

Adam thought about it. "Yes, I suppose you are correct," he finally said, "but we did it because it makes sense."

"It may make sense on Lyoko, but it does not make sense here and now," Aelita pronounced, "now, if this little debate over the birds and the bees is over with, I'll fix us something to eat."

"Wait a minute!" Emily suddenly said, "birds and bees? Were you two just talking about sex?!"

"Emily, would you pull out some cans of soup?" Aelita asked, "Adam, would you make your way back to the stream and bring back some water? We'll need it to prepare the soup."

"Aelita," Emily said, "you didn't answer my question."

"You are absolutely correct," she replied, "now, go find that soup."

* * *

It was late at night when the next tremor hit. The three had eaten their dinner, then had a brief lesson in sanitation as their previous meal completed its journey through their bodies. Afterwards, Adam just shook his head at the strange things the humans had to do, and his people would one day need to learn.

Aelita was awakened by a violent shaking. She opened her eyes an saw that the walls of the shack were visibly moving.

"Emily! Adam! Wake Up, we have to get out NOW!" she hollered.

The other two woke up, saw and felt what was happening and made a break for the entrance. The three just barely made it outside before the shack collapsed.

"The equipment!" Adam shouted and started to run back in.

"No, stay here," Aelita said as she grabbed him to keep him in place.

"But we need to..."

"We do not need you injured, Adam," Aelita said, "that is an experience you have not had yet and don't want to have. We will wait a moment until the debris settles, then we will see if we can salvage the equipment."

Just as she said that, the tremors started up again. This time, it looked like parts of the ground would heave up and down, almost like a wave of water. Off in the distance to the southwest, they could barely make out what looked like small dots flying up in the air."

"Aelita..." Emily said, clearly frightened now.

"Jeremie said that the tower was two kilometers northeast," Aelita quickly said, "Adam, you know the way, so you take the lead. We'd better move fast, I think New Lyoko is breaking up."


	12. Help Is Coming

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Jeremie was awakened by the insistent chiming of his workstation. He had fallen asleep trying to trace the actual code that had transferred Emily to New Lyoko. Now, someone was trying to call him.

"Wha... what is it?" he said sleepily. He pushed his glasses back onto his nose, realized that someone was trying to contact his workstation, and opened the chat link. Zoe's image resolved in the display window.

"JeremieBelpois, I have just received indications that New Lyoko is devirtualizing," she said without preamble.

"How bad?" was all he asked.

"Total devirtualization, probably within one to two hours. The planet is already starting to break up."

"Any word from Aelita, Adam and Emily?"

"None. I have reason to believe that the transport site has been compromised. I cannot detect any link between your scanner and that area. I am prepared to send some of my children through to try and bring them back. We have designed a vehicle capable of carrying a large number of persons; the only problem is whether or not it will actually function on New Lyoko."

"Do what you feel is necessary," Jeremie said, "and pray its enough."

"If I were to pray, JeremieBelpois, it would be to you," Zoe replied, "since you were the one that created me. The only thing I can pray for is that our loved ones return to us safely. If you would, could you relay that on to your creator?"

"From your lips to God's ear," Jeremie replied, severing the connection.

* * *

The tremors had subsided for the moment, and the trio could rest.

"It seems like we should be there by now," Emily said, "two kilometers isn't really that far."

"We've been fighting the waves, almost literally," Aelita said, "those tremors were so bad, it caused the ground to liquefy. We're lucky we're still alive."

They were picking their way up a hill, newly formed by the quakes. When they got to the top, Adam called out and pointed.

"Look!"

They had made it to the transit tower at last. It was a once a tall white cylinder, but now it lay on its side like a broken piece of chalk.

"We are so going to die," Emily said.

"Some day, yes," Aelita replied, "but not today. C'mon, let's get down to it. Maybe we can contact somebody."

* * *

Zoe stood before the interface in the core area of Carthage and looked at the latest reading. About one tenth of the planet had broken up, but that one tenth just happened to be near by where the Belpois transfer site was. And to make matters worse, the transit tower from Lyoko was damaged and unusable. There was another tower sixty kilometers away, but Zoe had no hope of it surviving the next tremor.

"Cal, what is the status of the Oversled?" she called out.

A blond headed boy standing close by turned and replied, "ready at any time, MotherZoe. I still cannot say with certainty if it will function on New Lyoko."

"Then we shall find out," she replied, "Transfer the Oversled to New Lyoko, tertiary tower number six. Take Micah and prepare it for rescue operations. The planet is in the process of breaking up, so use you discretion; if tremors start up again and endanger the tower, immediately abandon the position and return to the tower. Otherwise, perform a brief systems check of the vehicle, then notify me. If everything is good to go, I will join you there, and we will retrieve our loved ones."

Everyone in the core turned and looked at her like she had just gone mad.

"Yes, I will lead the rescue operation," Zoe said, "for now, the quakes seem to have subsided. I have faith that the Oversled will function on New Lyoko, at least long enough to retrieve our loved ones; and I am willing to back that faith up with my life. If I should be proven wrong, then Bea shall lead you, and you shall continue your work. Now, Cal, do as I say. The rest of you, continue your work. If Adam, AelitaBelpois or EmilyMoralés should make contact, even for a moment, note their position and tell them to remain where they are. Now, as TaylorThompson likes to say, 'let's move like we have a purpose, people.'"

* * *

Aelita, Adam and Emily finally made it to what was left of the tower. It looked like a tree that had been uprooted, with its roots jutting out its bottom like a bad haircut. Aelita walked over to the base, and tried pushing her hand through the wall. Nothing happened.

"That is not a good sign," Adam said.

"Let's try to get in through one of the breaks," Aelita then suggested.

The tower had been broken in two by the fall, and there was a meter wide gap between the major pieces. They walked up to the break, and peered in.

The lower half looked completely empty, like a dark tunnel leading to nowhere. The upper half had a little more light to it, and what looked like some kind of platform was resting on the wall, about half way in. What light there was in the upper half was coming from the platform floor.

"C'mon, we may be in luck!" Aelita said as she ran into the upper half.

The three ran inside and up to the platform. The edge was low enough so they could climb up on it without too much of a problem, except that when they put any weight on the edge, it would tilt down, dumping them back on the wall of the tower.

"Look around to see if there's anything we can use to brace this with," Aelita said.

Adam and Emily looked about, then Adam saw something and ran off, returning a few seconds later with a chunk of tower wall that had broken off in the fall. They jammed it under the edge, and it stabilized enough so the trio could climb up.

Aelita walked to the center of the platform. The moment she stepped into the center, a display screen appeared out of no where. The woman placed her hand on the display, and the word 'Aelita' appeared. She then called up a display somehow or another, and began speaking.

"Hello, Jeremie? Zoe? This is Aelita. We've made it to the transit tower closest to our transfer site, but its been destroyed. Is somebody there? Answer please!"

"We are here, and greatly relieved that you are all right," came an unfamiliar voice, "this is Ed. MotherZoe is not here. She, Cal and Micah are making preparations to retrieve you. We know about the destruction of the transit tower, so they are coming in from a tertiary tower a few kilometers away. We have been instructed to tell you to stay where you are, that help is on the way."


	13. Reprieve

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The transit from Lyoko to New Lyoko went without a hitch. To Cal and Micah, the two pilots of the prototype Oversled, it was no different than jumping from one Lyoko region to another,except for the new sensations they started feeling when they arrived on New Lyoko. Carefully, they guided the Oversled around the main level platform and prepared to exit the tower on to New Lyoko.

"I say we should ease it out," Micah said to his older brother, "that way, if it fails, the fall will not damage it too much."

"I disagree," Cal replied, "we will apply maximum power to the forward thrust, and quickly clear the entrance. If the Oversled doesn't work, the momentum will cause it to clear the entrance. The last thing I want right now is to be stuck outside a perfectly good tower with no way to get back inside."

With that, Cal twisted the forward thrust power control to full power. The Oversled shot out of the tower like a spit wad out of a straw.

Both boys held on for dear life as the vehicle sprang into the sky of an alien world. They were assaulted by new sensations from every direction, both outside of them, as well as inside. MotherZoe had briefed all of her children on the changes that would be made to them when they ultimately moved to New Lyoko, and some of the others who had gone to previous incarnations regaled the others with their stories. But none of that prepared the two for the reality of their new forms.

Fortunately, the Oversled didn't crash; it would function on New Lyoko. Now, all they had to do was go retrieve the others, after MotherZoe arrived.

Micah activated a control on the Oversled's console. "Oversled to Control, Micah reporting. The Oversled is functional. We are returning to the transit tower to await MotherZoe's arrival."

* * *

"Thank you, God!"

Jeremie's sudden prayer of thanks was caused by the missing link he was searching feverishly for. Emily _had not_ been converted to Lyokoan matter during the transfer, that was the purpose of the warning message. The transfer program had never encountered a human before, even though it could identify one, so it didn't know what to do with it. The specific code line he was looking at was the final default of the decision tree it had followed. The program defaulted to the original conversion routine that Jeremie had migrated from the supercomputer when he began this project. Emily was deconstructed with all of her quantum particles mapped, and that map was stored as part of her New Lyoko DNA. When she takes the transit tower to Lyoko, that pattern will be carried with her, and she will be able to return to Earth as her normal self.

Both her and his angel.

His workstation chimed, indicating a request for a conference. He opened the program, and Suzanne Moralés image resolved in the display.

"Suzanne! How are you today?" he said, trying to hide the surprise in his voice.

"It was quite an evening," was her reply, "I never realized just how clean the inside of a Japanese police station was until last night."

"Police station? What happened?"

"It seems like the boys had a little too much fun at the sumo match last night," Suzanne replied with a little chuckle in her voice, "my darling Jim, the love of my life and the father of my daughter, got into a shouting match with another spectator there, over what I have no idea. Ulrich, Takeo and Mr. Toya tried to calm the two down, but it got out of hand. We spent most of the night trying to bail their sorry asses out of jail, and almost didn't, until someone recognized Mr. Toya. Then, it seemed that everything was okay, and they were released. I never knew until then that he was such a celebrity. Yumi tried to explain it, but I can't for the life of me see how someone can make a living from playing a board game!"

"Heh, heh," Jeremie replied, "so, what can I do for you?"

"I would like to speak to Aelita, if you please," she replied, "she owes me an explanation of the additional quantum circuit in the test chip."

"Aelita isn't here right now," Jeremie replied, "she and Emily are... out for the day."

"Jeremie Belpois, I may be older than you, but I am not senile," Suzanne snapped, "I need to speak to Aelita, and right now! And after last night, I'm in no mood for games!"

"What I said was true, to a point," Jeremie said, sighing silently in defeat, "Aelita and Emily are not here. Where they are has something to do with the chip. I was hoping to wait until they had returned to fill you in, but I guess I can't. Is Jim with you? He has as much right to hear this as you do."

"Jim is in no condition to hear much of anything right now," Suzanne said, "he and the others are in Miko's gentle hands. The last time I saw him, he was scrubbing the bathroom tile out with his toothbrush, wearing little more than a loincloth around the right places and a pink bow around his neck. Yumi has taken a lot of pictures, and I'm looking forward to showing them off when I get back. Now, start talking."

Jeremie reminded himself _never_ to get drunk around Yumi's mother.

"Okay. First of all, parts of what I'm about to tell you are covered under the Official Secrets Act. The penalty for disclosing this information is punishable by fines and imprisonment..."

* * *

Zoe stood outside of the tower and waited for her two sons to bring the Oversled back. Like them, this was her first time in the New Lyoko form she would take one day, and the sensations her mind was trying to process almost overwhelmed her. The one feeling she did concentrate on, however, was the light trembling sensation registering against the soles of her feet.

Just then, she saw the Oversled break over a mound a few kilometers away. It quickly came to her position and settled down.

"MotherZoe, your transportation awaits," Cal said with a smile.

"Very good," she replied as she boarded, "there is a communications link?"

"Yes, but it is voice only," Micah said.

She went to the console and looked a moment. Micah indicated the proper controls, then opened the connection for her.

"Control here and standing by."

"This is Zoe. I have joined the others and we are about to go to the transit tower site. Give me a status report on New Lyoko."

"Tremors are starting up again," came the reply, "and more severe than the previous series. The tower you are at now is at a high risk of damage. MotherZoe, please return to Lyoko, you will not be able to reach them in time."

"Is it required that the tower be anchored to the ground in order for it to function correctly?"

"No, it is not."

"Good. Decouple this tower from the surface, and suspend it one hundred meters above the ground. Hold it in that position until directed otherwise by me."

"Understood; we will comply."

"Cal, take us to the transit tower," Zoe then said to her son, "we need to recover our loved ones before it is too late."

* * *

The tremors in the ground were worrying more than just Zoe. Aelita, Adam and Emily had left the tower once they had lost the connection to Lyoko. Whatever was powering the tower finally ran out of power, plunging the platform in darkness. Now, the trio sat outside, away from the tower, and waited for rescue.

"Well, I guess we aren't going to be doing any more experiments," Emily said to Adam, trying to give him a smile, "We could have tried swimming next."

"Swimming? What is that?" he asked.

"Moving in the water," she replied, "you can move just with most of your body under the water, and just your head above it, or you can completely immerse yourself and move completely under the water."

"Then how can you breathe?" he asked.

"You don't. You hold your breath."

"For how long?"

"It depends. Maybe next time, I can show you. Dad always made sure I knew how to swim and handle myself in the water."

"It seems unlikely we will have the opportunity," Adam said, as the first tendrils of a new feeling started to grow within him, sadness, "I very much doubt that we will survive this situation. But I am glad I finally met you in person. Maybe MotherZoe would have allowed us to stay in contact if she met you in person, too. If only..."

"Hold that thought, children," Aelita suddenly said, pointing into the distance, "I think our ride has arrived."


	14. The Last Flight Out

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

"So, you're telling me that this second quantum circuit is being used to create a quantum computer to generate a virtual world?" Suzanne Moralés was asking.

"That is correct, in a simple manner," Jeremie replied. He had told Suzanne the whole Lyoko story, from the day he first came across Aelita until today. The only thing he left out was the most important thing she needed to know.

"Jeremie, you always did have a vivid imagination," Suzanne said, "but this takes the cake. What you're saying is impossible."

"As impossible as generating a supercomputer composed of petabytes of memory and on line and near line storage? We've been building those for years. We're just carrying the concept a little further."

"I'm going to have to see this to believe it," the woman replied.

"You may have the opportunity," Jeremie said, "there's another reason why I told you what I just told you, aside from your concerns. It's about Emily."

"What about my daughter?"

"Yesterday, she managed to get herself transported to this world you say is impossible. And I have spent just about every waking moment since then making sure I can bring her back alive."

* * *

Emily and Adam looked in the direction that Aelita pointed. Just above the horizon, a small dot appeared, and began to grow. After a few moments, it took shape. It was a long platform type object, with a raised section at the front where the operators stood. It reminded Aelita of Yumi's Overwing, except stretched out. It was long as a delivery truck, and about as wide.

At the controls were Micah, Zoe and Cal. The Aelita and her charges whooped and hollered their relief as they waived and jumped up and down, making sure that their rescuers had spotted them. The craft they were in settled down to a hover a few meters away from them. Then Zoe called out, "I believe the proper phrase is 'need a lift?'"

"Definitely!" they all replied is they piled in.

As they joined the others at the front, Zoe said, "introductions and congratulations will have to wait. Another sequence of tremors is starting, and it is estimated to be worse than the last series. We need to get back to our tower and safely to Lyoko. This planet may not survive this next convulsion."

With that, Cal gunned the thrusters and the vehicle shot off.

* * *

"Jeremie! I demand to see my daughter right this instant!" Suzanne shouted over the conference link, "if you do not, I will personally make you wish that your father had never been born!"

"Suzanne, I can't," was Jeremie's reply, "the best I can do at the moment is contact Zoe for an update."

"Do that then."

Jeremie typed something on his workstation, and another window popped open, showing one of Zoe's children.

"Yes, JeremieBelpois, what can I do for you?" she said.

"Where's Zoe? She should be monitoring the situation on New Lyoko," he asked.

"She is with Cal and Micah, conducting rescue operations at this time," she replied, "we have just gotten word that they have recovered everyone and are returning to Lyoko. Also, the next round of tremors are building, and it looks like the whole planet will be involved this time. Current estimates are that the planet will completely break up in about thirty minutes."

"Can you tell me if the secondary scanners are online?" Jeremie next asked.

"Yes, they are," was the reply, "the last time they were utilized was three weeks ago as part of a regular preventative maintenance routine. I am told that the Ishiyamas and the Sterns had a wonderful time playing something called paintball."

"Alright. I am going to be sending someone to Lyoko from that location, plus I will be arriving there myself. Let the others know."

"Yes, sir." The girl's image disappeared.

"Suzanne, the only way I can prove to you that what I'm saying is true is to show you. Tell Yumi to take you to the secondary scanner room at our R & D Center. If you want, bring Jim with you."

"No, my darling husband hasn't totally served his sentence," Suzanne said, "so I think I will leave him in Miko's capable hands while I take this tour you are offering me. But let me remind you; if you are lying to me, if you are trying to play me for a fool, you will regret it. And if something happens to me, rest assured that Jim will take matters into his own hands. And between the two of us, I am the nice one."

* * *

The trip back was exhilarating. Emily wasn't sure if that was due to the wind rushing past her face as they flew on, or the stark terror she felt as she began to see New Lyoko fly apart. Down below, the ground literally rolled like water. Off in the distance behind her, she saw what looked like chunks of ground break off and fly into the air, to disappear into space.

"We are five minutes away from the transit tower," Cal said to everybody, "the surface is extremely unstable in the area, and may break away at any moment. When we arrive at the tower, everybody must enter from the Oversled, immediately head to the platform's edge and jump off. There will be no time to pilot the vehicle through, so we will have to abandon it."

"What happens if the tower is destroyed while we are transiting back?" Adam asked.

"Unknown," Cal replied, "we have never had it happen. It may come down to which side of the interface you are on when the tower is destroyed. Why do you ask, were you going to run an experiment and find out?"

"No," Adam replied, "but the information would be useful."

Just then, the tower appeared on the horizon. It had been lifted up one hundred meters above where it had rested, and had weathered the quakes fury so far. But all around the tower, patches of ground were starting to break up. They would fly up in the air, hang for a moment, the fall back, but there was an increasing number of pieces, and the tears they left were starting to connect.

"Hang on!" Micah called out as Cal increased speed to the maximum.

The Oversled was making a beeline for the tower, and Cal was showing no signs of slowing down. All of the others grabbed on to whatever they could, preparing for the worst.

At what seemed like the very last instant, Cal slammed back the forward thrust, and applied full reverse thrust, while simultaneously jerking the Oversled around so it skidded sideways into the side of the tower. Everybody was shaken by the impact, and Emily was shaken loose.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!"

She stumbled to the edge of the platform, and fell over. As her feet cleared the platform, Emily felt time slow down to a crawl. This was her final punishment; to be cast away just at the moment of salvation. She, like the cat, would die for her curiosity.

Time suddenly started flowing again when a hand grabbed her ankle.

"Ugh! Got you!" Adam grunted. When he grabbed Emily's ankle, the force of her falling knocked him down on the platform, and nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket. But he held on.

"Help me pull her up!" he called. Quickly, Aelita and Micah came to his aid, and the girl was quickly pulled back up.

"We are out of time!" Cal called out. Just beyond him, a huge mass of ground broke away and flew up in the air, with no signs of returning. The blast of air from its passing buffeted both the Oversled and the tower. Zoe, Aelita and Cal ran and jumped into the tower. Emily was shocked as she saw each of them melt into what looked like a solid wall.

"Now, its your turn," Micah said as he picked Emily up and threw her inside.

Emily landed on her butt inside, just in time to see Aelita leap from the edge of the platform just ahead of her. She quickly got up and went to the edge where the woman had just been, and was quickly joined by Adam and Micah.

"C'mon, you two, we have no more time!" Micah said just before he too jumped.

"Now, EmilyMoralés; we must jump now," Adam told her.

Emily knew she had to jump; if she stayed she was dead. But yet, she couldn't see the bottom; she didn't know what would happen...

The decision was made for her when Adam shoved her over the edge. She screamed as she plummeted into the darkness.


	15. Welcome To Lyoko

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Suzanne found Yumi supervising her husband as he cut the front lawn with what looked like embroidery scissors. His head was still hanging down from last night's hangover, and he was wearing nothing but a loincloth like his fellow convicts. Yumi said she tied a blue ribbon on Ulrich, but Suzanne couldn't see it. When she asked where, Yumi just smiled.

The young woman got a strange look on her face when she delivered Jeremie's message, then said, "alright, let's go." They got their bags and drove to Hopper Electronics R & D Center.

After showing their Ids to the security guard, who checked them very closely, the two women wound their way past offices and laboratories, until they came to a locked room.

Yumi pulled a set of keys from her purse, found the key she was looking for and unlocked the door. The two women entered, Yumi turned on the light then relocked the door.

"This is our secondary scanner room," she said, "we built it right after we built the R & D Center; that way if one of us needed to get to Lyoko for some reason, we didn't have to hop a plane to do it. There have also been a couple of times when we've used it to pop back to Paris for a brief period."

"Are you saying this is some kind of matter transporter?" Suzanne asked.

"You'd have to ask Einstein that," Yumi replied, "now, I need you to step into this cylinder here. I need to set a couple of things up, then we'll go to Lyoko."

* * *

Emily fell for what seemed like an eternity, then the falling sensation changed to more of a flying sensation. Now, it felt like she was flying horizontally instead of falling downwards.

She also started feeling different. It was like her insides somehow disappeared and were replaced with something else. In some ways, she seemed to go numb all over, and even the darkness of the tunnel seemed to change, becoming almost cartoonish.

The flying sensation changed too, into a soaring sensation. She was rising up now, not flying level. She kept rising and rising, slowing down all the while. Then, she saw a platform come into view. It rushed towards her, looking for a moment like it would swat her down. But somehow, she maneuvered to the edge. She stopped just above the cleared platform, then was pushed gently forward and down upon it.

There, waiting for her on the platform, were the others, Aelita, Zoe, Cal and Micah. She walked over and joined them, a little dazed at her journey.

Aelita smiled. "Welcome to Lyoko, Emily. How do you feel?"

"Strange," she replied, "really strange."

"Reality is different here on Lyoko than it is on Earth," the pink haired woman said, "you don't have all of the senses you normally have, and your body is entirely different. Look."

Emily looked down at herself. She wasn't in the jeans and tee shirt she started this adventure in; she was dressed in some kind of off teal green tunic, and what looked like green soft leather boots.

"Originally, the computer would pick out a form for you," Aelita went on, "but years ago, Jeremie modified the routine to do a straight transfer with clothing modifications instead, unless a persona was specifically created. As you can see, I have a persona defined for me."

Aelita stood before her wearing a tunic much like the one Emily was wearing, but she was wearing pink boots instead of green. She also had pinkish ribbons or straps tied around her legs. Also, her ears were pointed, like an elf or a Vulcan, and she had an earring in one ear.

"Where is Adam," Zoe suddenly said, "he should have been here by now."

"He should have been right behind me," Emily said, "he pushed me off the platform and..."

Zoe suddenly turned and walked out of the tower. The others hesitated a moment, then followed her.

They walked out into what looked like a planetarium. All around were what looked like stars, until you looked closer. Then they became little data windows. The path before them led to a huge sphere, all blue and looking like it was composed of blocks or Legos.

"What is this..." Emily began.

"It's called Carthage, but explanations will have to wait," Aelita said, "we have to find out what's up with Adam."

They entered the sphere and walked down a long catwalk. When they reached the end, it started moving at a fast pace. After a moment, it reached its destination and stopped.

As they left, Aelita said, "we had quite a time getting the elevator to do that; we used to have to jump on it as it sped by."

They walked down another corridor and entered a large arena. It seemed that people were standing around all over, before floating computer screens like Emily had seen on New Lyoko. In the center of the room floated a huge hologram of what looked like a planet. There were splotches of red blinking all over its surface, and another speck that seemed to be circling the planet was pulsing red too.

The made their way down onto the arena, then walked over to one of the people standing by the hologram.

"Status report," Zoe said to the boy.

"Collapse is imminent, "he replied, "thirty percent of the planet's surface has been compromised, and the sun is going critical."

"What about the transit site we just came from," Zoe asked next.

"Destroyed, just after you left, it seems."

The group was silent.

"Was there any communication from the transit tower prior to its being destroyed?" Zoe asked.

"None."

"Was there any indication of life present there when the tower was destroyed?"

"One figure, but it left the platform just as the tower was compromised."

"Review all transit logs from that tower. I want to know if there were any transfer errors encountered before the tower went offline."

"MotherZoe, I do n..."

"Adam was the last person on the platform, and he did not appear on the other side."

"I will start checking right away."

* * *

Suzanne was engulfed in a bright white light as she was lifted up and virtualized. The next thing she knew, she was floating above a wooded region. After a second, she dropped to the ground, falling on her butt.

Just as she picked her self up, Yumi nimbly dropped down beside her. She was wearing some kind of Japanese geisha-like outfit, but it came from no geisha Suzanne had ever seen.

"Welcome to Lyoko, and welcome to the family," she said, smiling.

"Just what is this?" Suzanne asked.

"This is Lyoko," Yumi replied, "a virtual world. I was created many years ago by Aelita's father. He originally wanted a safe place for him and his daughter."

"But, unfortunately, it wasn't all that safe a place," came a man's voice. Jeremie had walked up behind the two women. He was dressed in a gray body suit from head to toe.

"Like I told you before we came here, a program called XANA imprisoned him and Aelita for years."

"And you say Emily is here someplace," Suzanne said, "take me to her."

"Right this way," Jeremie said, then added, "oh, and hi Yumi. Long time no see."

She gave him a peck on the cheek and replied, "we're only a plane ride or a scanner trip away, Einstein."

He smiled in return, and the three walked to the edge of the region.

* * *

"MotherZoe, there are no errors in the transit logs up until the tower was lost," Micah reported, "Adam must not have made it."

Everyone was silent at the news.

"Remember him in your hearts forever," MotherZoe said reverently, "even though he himself cannot continue with us, his memory can."

"Why, thank you for the sentiment, MotherZoe," came Adam's voice. Everybody turned, and there he stood in the doorway from the elevator.

"I had thought for a moment that all of you had not made it," he continued.

Emily shrieked in delight and ran over to him, throwing herself into his arms. She kissed him and pulled him close; crushing him to her so hard, it seemed like he was about to melt into her.

"Um, arr, ah, EmilyMoralés," he sputtered, "I have feelings for you too, some of them intimate; but this is not the time and place."

She let go and looked at him. His face was flush, and he looked like he had been expending great effort to hold back something.

"Did I just do something wrong," she asked sheepishly.

"Inappropriate is the precise term," Adam replied, "other than that, you were doing everything right. And AelitaBelpois said you weren't mature enough yet."


	16. The Best Part

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The Transport Orb deposited Jeremie, Yumi and Suzanne in the center of Carthage's arena. All around, the walls of the room were spinning as the entranceway configured itself.

"Don't look too close, it might make you sick," Yumi said, "look at Jeremie."

Jeremie was looking studiously at the floor.

"Yeah, one time I looked too close and got sick," Jeremie said, "I'm the only person ever to have thrown up on Lyoko."

Finally, the walls stopped and the door slid up. they walked out of the arena and to the entrance. Just as they arrived, the passageway opened.

"Emily and the others are right through here," Jeremie said, "I just got word that they all made it back okay."

They came to a large room, with a huge holographic image in the center. There were people distributed all around the room, working at what looked like displays. Close to the hologram was a small knot of people, including Aelita, Zoe, and Emily.

"Emily!" Suzanne shouted, running over to her.

"Mom?" was Emily's response as she scooped her daughter up in a big hug.

"Ah, mom, not here," Emily said, "I just found out a hug isn't just a hug here."

Suzanne let go, but still gave the girl a kiss. "I don't particularly care what people think."

"You would if you knew what it is here," her daughter replied.

"We can discuss cultural differences another time," said another voice, Zoe's, "SuzanneMoralés, it is a pleasure to finally meet you face to face.'

Suzanne ignored Zoe and turned to Aelita. "So, this is the secret you've been keeping. This is the reason for the second quantum circuit.'

"No, that is the reason," Aelita replied, pointing to the hologram. "We need to build a quantum computer to generate that world long enough to set its parameters correctly, and move the population of Lyoko there. Once that is done, the computer will isolate that world in its own self-sustaining quantum reality pocket. We can do it, and in some ways we know we already have, but to do it requires a massive computer in our world to generate an even more massive quantum computer. Plus, that quantum computer will have to keep running for years, decades maybe, while we set everything up. When we realized just how big a computer we would need, we almost gave up in despair, until Zoe came up with the idea of generating a second quantum circuit. With Hopper chips generating the two circuits, we can build the computer we need and keep it running for as long as we want. There's nothing sinister going on; we're not trying to rule the world. We're just trying to make a world for our friends, one that will last beyond our lifetimes."

As they watched, the large sphere that was the planet New Lyoko broke completely apart, followed quickly by the small sun that was orbiting the world. There was a bright flash, then the hologram disappeared, replaced by a message box: "Quantum Pocket Collapsed."

"And you want me to join you, to help you make this world?" Suzanne asked.

"If you want to, yes," Jeremie replied, "if not, the only thing we ask is that you keep our secret. If you decide to leave Hopper Electronics, that would be the only restriction we would place on you. We would be sad to see you go though; we care for you, Jim and Emily as much as our own families."

"Jeremie, Aelita, this is a lot to have to process in such a short time, "Suzanne said, "I will have to think about it. For now, I would appreciate it if you would send Emily and me back."

"Mom, I don't know if I can go back," Emily said.

"Yes, you can," Jeremie quickly replied, "just before we came here, I found out you weren't converted into Lyokoan matter when you were transferred to New Lyoko. Now, your clothes on the other hand weren't as lucky, so you'd probably better change when you get back."

"Then we should go," Suzanne said, "we have to pack for the flight back, and I need to give Jim the last bit of his punishment for last night."

'What is that," Jeremie asked.

"The forgiveness," Yumi said, "the best part."

* * *

The rest of the day, Sunday, was nerve wracking. Yumi and Suzanne were devirtualized back to Kyoto, and Jeremie, Aelita and Emily were sent back to Paris. The girl stepped out of a small cylinder in what looked like an old basement. Jeremie explained that they were in a sub-basement of The Old Factory Building where Hopper Electronics and Jeremie's other companies were based.

They took her out for lunch, then brought her home and gave her the requisite Lecture On Just Why She Was Asked Not To Poke Around The Basement. They never shouted, but they were stern in their reproach.

Then Aelita scooped Emily up in her arms and hugged her close. Everything had now passed: the fear, the danger, the anger. All that was left was relief and love. As the woman held her close and wept her relief, Emily hugged her back and let her own emotions flow, emotions she never realized she was holding back until she let them go.

_They're right, the forgiveness is the best part,_ Emily thought.

Monday, Emily didn't whither and die like she had thought she would, though the clothes she wore that day did. She spent the entire school day wondering when she would vanish in a puff of smoke, explode, or something more gruesome. She was thankful that day for the Della Robbia's watchful eyes.

Her parents arrived from Kyoto that evening. She threw herself in her mother's arms, saying that she was sorry for the trouble she caused. Her father looked like he didn't know what she was talking about; Suzanne hadn't told him about what she had learned yet.

When they got back to the Belpois, Suzanne accompanied Emily to get her things, while Jim unloaded their luggage at home. When they got inside, Suzanne spoke up.

"I've been thinking about what you said on Lyoko yesterday," she began, "and it still bothers me that you are keeping all of this a secret. But, it wasn't nearly as bad as what I was thinking, and after being there in person, I don't think I can deny them their opportunity. I'll stay on and help however I can."

"That's great!" Jeremie said, "After the School's Board of Governors Meeting, we'll bring Jim up to speed. Then, we can talk about the future.'

"I don't know if Jim could fit in here," Suzanne said, "I love him more than my life, but he isn't always the brightest bulb in the box."

"That doesn't matter," Jeremie said, "Takeo Ishiyama didn't seem like he could fit in with us, but we told him anyway, and we would be lost today without him. And just so you know, at one time Jim did know about us, and gave us help when we really needed it. We want him with us, just as much as we want you and Emily."

"Emily?"

"Yes," Aelita piped in, "Emily showed us a big gap in our plans, teaching the Lyokoans about their new forms. New Lyoko will be a world almost exactly like Earth, and they will be human in just about every way. Didn't you notice how things were different on Lyoko? Like most of your senses were turned off? Like your body was like a stuffed doll? That's all the Lyokoans know, and we need to teach them the simplest things, things so fundamental to our lives we don't even think about them. Emily started that while she was on New Lyoko, and I would like her to continue that as we move forward."

"What do you say, Emily?" Jeremie asked.

"Would that mean I get to go back the next time? That I could see Adam?" she asked, then blushed when she realized she only mentioned Adam, "and the others, of course."

Aelita chuckled, "yes, Emily. You can see Adam again; and the others, of course."

"Mom?"

"I suppose, if it is in a supervised manner." Then Suzanne smiled. "Yes, of course you can."

* * *

Friday night, and the end of one of the most interesting and exciting weeks in Emily Moralés life. Her mother gave her another stern talking to about respecting people's privacy, and how sometimes curiosity could indeed kill the cat. Emily sat and took it in, having been through it once with the Belpois.

But after that, she found that her computer in her bedroom and been replaced by a workstation just like her mother's, and like the one she had at the Belpois. Along with the workstation was an identification card for Hopper Electronics, one that gave her access to quite a few of its facilities, especially the ones in the sub-basement. But the thing she loved the most was what that equipment gave her.

"So, how was school today, EmilyMoralés?" Adam asked from the conference display. Emily's bedroom workstation had access to Lyoko, so she could, within reason, communicate with anyone there.

"It's Emily, Not 'EmilyMoralés,'" she corrected, "Moralés is my family name, the name I share with my mother and father. Emily is my name."

"Alright then, _Emily_," Adam said, "how was school today?"

"Same old, same old," she replied, "I don't know what's making daddy happier right now, finding out about the Belpois secret, or having Desmond running the Board of Governors."

"Will you be coming to Lyoko this weekend? I would like to show you around," Adam said next.

"It depends on mom and dad. If I do come, it'll probably with one of them, and they'll be carrying a ruler with them. Mom just about blew a gasket when Zoe explained what hugging was on Lyoko."

Adam chuckled. "I assure you, your virtue will remain safe with me; and I would welcome either or both of your parents."

"Emily! Time for bed! You can gab with your boyfriend tomorrow!" came Suzanne's voice from down the hall.

"Well, I gotta go," she said to him, "I'm going to float my idea to Aelita and Jeremie tomorrow, so wish me luck."

"What idea?"

"To bring you here," she told him, "they know about how long Lyokoan matter can hold together, and they know the signs when it starts breaking down. We could bring you here for short periods to experience the things you one day will feel on New Lyoko. All of you, not just you alone, Adam."

"I hope it comes about. Good luck with your presentation," Adam said, "and good night. Rest and reorganize, my teacher."

After he vanished from the display, Emily logged off. As she undressed for bed, she thought how funny it was. She was poking about, trying to figure out someone else's secrets, and she had come away with not only that, but a purpose in life, and maybe even love, or infatuation anyway. Things she needed, but until this moment in time never knew she needed.

And finding that was the best part of all.


End file.
